National death penalty expert and University of Colorado sociology professor Michael Radelet played an instrumental role in the Illinois governor's historic January decision to empty death row in that state.
The process began three years ago, when Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions after the state released its 13th wrongfully convicted death row inmate. His concerns over a system which he called "broken" led him to establish a bipartisan commission to study the problem and suggest solutions.
Radelet and criminologist Glenn Pierce from Northeastern University were recruited by the commission to study the system of death sentencing in Illinois. What they found was that for similar homicides, those convicted of killing whites-were 60 percent more likely to get the death penalty than those who killed blacks. In addition, those committing murder in Chicago were 84 percent less likely to receive death than those who killed in a rural area.
In many cases, there was no rhyme or reason as to why prosecutors sought death in some cases and not in other very similar cases. "Even with the large number of factors in our model, there was a huge degree of unpredictability and arbitrariness in who got life and who got death," said Radelet. Such disparities troubled the governor, who saw a blanket clemency as the only fair solution.
Radelet, who has studied the death penalty for over 20 years, is best known for his pioneering work on wrongful convictions. He is currently revising his 1992 book In Spite of Innocence, and has just completed a study of the history of the death penalty in Colorado, set for publication in the next issue of the University of Colorado Law Review.
-- The Abolitionist, Volume 1, Number 1. A publication of Coloradans Against the Death Penalty.
