[Newspoetry] NYTimes.com Article: Illinois Supreme Court Issues Rules for Handling Capital Cases

Wed Jan 24 14:14:26 CST 2001

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Illinois Supreme Court Issues Rules for Handling Capital Cases
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/24/national/24DEAT.html

January 24, 2001

By JO THOMAS

URBANA, Ill., Jan. 23   The Supreme Court of Illinois has adopted new
rules governing the way death penalty cases are handled. The rules,
announced on Monday, set requirements for training and experience
for all defense lawyers and assistant prosecutors handling the
cases.

 They also require regular training for judges, who must attend
seminars on capital cases at least every two years, and remind
prosecutors that their duty is "to seek justice, not merely to
convict."

 The rules come at a time of wide national interest in death
penalty fairness, particularly in Illinois, where the governor put
a moratorium on executions a year ago.

 Today, Moses W. Harrison II, chief justice of the Supreme Court of
Illinois, called the rules "just the beginning" of an effort to
improve the way capital cases are handled in the state. The judges,
Justice Harrison said, have no intention of interfering with the
efforts of either the governor or the State Legislature to overhaul
the system.

 The court's rules are the result of nearly two years of study by a
committee of 17 judges. The committee began work in 1999 after
Anthony Porter, who came within two days of execution, was
exonerated in the shooting deaths of a young Chicago couple in a
1982 robbery. Mr. Porter spent 16 years on death row before a group
of Northwestern University journalism students found evidence of
his innocence.

 The Chicago Tribune documented the cases of 13 men, including Mr.
Porter, wrongly convicted but not executed since Illinois
reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Citing these cases, Gov.
George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions last January and
created a special panel to study the state's capital punishment
system.

 Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for the governor, today called the
new rules "a positive step, but it doesn't change at all the
comprehensive review of the system."

 A major flaw often cited in the system has been the work of poorly
financed, often incompetent defense lawyers who have failed to
uncover and present crucial evidence. The Tribune's examination of
death penalty cases in Illinois found that 33 defendants sentenced
to die had been represented by lawyers who had been disbarred or
suspended.

 Under the new rules, which will begin to take effect in March, two
lawyers will be appointed for every poor defendant in a death
penalty case. To take a death penalty case, a lawyer, whether
appointed or retained privately, must be certified by the State
Supreme Court as a member of the Capital Litigation Trial Bar. Lead
lawyers must have five years of experience in court and eight
felony jury trials, including two murder trials, before taking on a
death penalty case. Their co-counsels must have three years of
experience and five felony jury trials.

 Lawrence C. Marshall, who represented several of the men who have
been exonerated in Illinois and is director of the Center on
Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, called the setting
up of a capital defense bar "a long overdue development in
Illinois."

 "From a larger perspective," Mr. Marshall said, "the court has
clearly sent a message that it recognizes that the system was
broken."

 The rules also require prosecutors not only to give defense
lawyers any evidence that may tend to exonerate their client   like
a statement that someone else committed the crime, or a scientific
test result that is not incriminating   but also to identify
clearly which information may be mitigating, so it does not get
lost in a mass of other evidence.

 The rules also specify that prosecutors must hand over any
relevant information relating to DNA evidence, including reports
explaining any discrepancies in the testing, observed defects or
laboratory errors, the reasons for these errors and the effect of
these mistakes.

 Judge Thomas R. Fitzgerald, the chairman of the court's committee,
said today in an interview that "the attempt to have a clear rule
concerning discovery in DNA matters was significant." He added,
"The technology will continue to change and evolve, and this rule
will have to be revisited from time to time."

 Ira P. Robbins, professor of criminal law at the Washington
College of Law at American University, said the rules in Illinois
were "going in the right direction." He continued: "Until now,
virtually all of the proposals for reform have been at the
postconviction level. But the real problem is at the trial level.
It is supposed to be the main event."

 Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights
in Atlanta, said he thought the new rules would improve the quality
of justice but would not solve the problem.

 "Just a small percentage of cases have DNA evidence," Mr. Bright
said. "It's not relevant in the classic case, of misidentification.
A witness thinks a person did it. The person says he didn't. You
can have all the discovery, all the judge's training, even capable
defense, and still convict an innocent person." 

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