Illinois House Passes Death Penalty Ban, Senate Next

Illinois House passes death penalty ban, Senate next
Chicago | Thu Jan 6, 2011 11:18pm EST Chicago (Reuters) - The Illinois House on Thursday voted to ban the death penalty, moving the measure on to the Senate a decade after a Moratorium on executions was put into place by former Governor George Ryan. Thursday night's vote came after a first vote failed, according to Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat who voted in favor of the ban. The final vote was 60-54 in favor of the ban. "I believe the history of the death penalty in...

Illinois House passes death penalty ban, Senate next
Thursday night's vote came after a first vote failed, according to Illinois State Representative Elaine Nekritz, a Democrat who voted in favor of the ban. The final vote was 60-54 in favor of the ban. "I believe the history of the death penalty in Illinois demonstrates that we are not in a position to get it right 100 percent of the time," said Nekritz, explaining her vote. Ryan ordered the Moratorium in January 2000 following a series of revelations that more than a dozen people had been sent ...

How the death penalty abolition bill passed on the second try
* As you know by now, the House passed a death penalty abolition bill on the second try yesterday. Democratic state Rep. Pat Verschoore voted against the bill the first time, then changed his vote after the bill’s sponsor appealed to him… “I’d been back and forth on this since they started talking about abolishing it,” Verschoore said. State Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood, the proposal’s sponsor, asked him to reconsider his vote, he said. “She’s helped me o

Illinois House Votes To Abolish Death Penalty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois House has approved a plan to abolish Capital Punishment in a whirlwind reversal on a historic vote. The Legislation to halt state-sponsored execution gained the necessary 60 votes Thursday after an earlier vote fell short. The landmark action comes nearly 11 years after then-Gov. George Ryan cleared death row and declared a Moratorium on Capital Punishment in Illinois. The Legislation now moves to the Senate, where President John Cullerton says he support...

Illinois House votes to abolish death penalty
Illinois Rep. Karen Yarbrough, D-Maywood, discusses Illinois Senate Bill 3539, which she is sponsoring, on the floor of the House of Representatives at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. In a whirlwind reversal, the Illinois House voted to Repeal the state's death penalty hours after an initial attempt failed. The Repeal measure came up one vote short during a 59-58 tally earlier Thursday. But a second vote yielded the required 60 votes. The measure passed 6...

Illinois House Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
Action Comes Nearly 11 Years after then-Gov. George Ryan Cleared Death Row, Declared Moratorium on Ill. Capital Punishment Like this Story? Share it: Learn about the people, economy and geography. (AP) SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois House has approved a plan to abolish capital punishment in a whirlwind reversal on a historic vote. The Legislation to halt state-sponsored execution gained the necessary 60 votes Thursday after an earlier vote fell short. The landmark action comes nearly 11 year...

Plan to kill death penalty in Illinois fails by single vote
A move to abolish the death penalty in Illinois failed by a single vote in the House today. The vote came 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan first placed a Moratorium on the death penalty following revelations that several people sent to Death Row were later exonerated. Read more in Clout Street. ...

Illinois House Votes to Abolish Death Penalty
"You can release an innocent man from Prison but not from the grave" said Gordon "Randy" Steidl, who spent 17 years in prison, including 12 on death row, after being wrongfully convicted of a double Murder. Thursday, the Illinois House voted to abolish the death penalty. The bill now goes to the Senate, where passage will be difficult, but not impossible. Thirty-five states now have the death penalty... Three states — New York, New Jersey and New Mexico — have eliminated the death ...

Ill. House OKs abolishing death penalty
SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Jan. 7 (UPI) -- A bill that would abolish the death penalty passed the Illinois House of Representatives and moved to the Senate where, observers say, its fate is uncertain. The vote Thursday came a decade after then-Gov. George Ryan issued a Moratorium on the death penalty after it was learned that several people on death row were Not Guilty, the report said. Observers say the bill's future is unclear in the final days of the Legislature's lame-duck session. Backers say Senat...

Illinois opts to chaves away voters and business
Image via Wikipedia IBD: Unimpressed by data showing that businesses, jobs and people flee high-tax states, the Land of Lincoln opts to squeeze the last penny out of Taxpayers with a whopping 75% income-tax increase. ... Temporary tax hikes are like unicorns — they exist only in legend. Even if this promise is kept, four years is long enough to drive out more businesses and workers and accelerate Illinois' death spiral into Bankruptcy. ...I would use the term insolvency to describe Illin...

Illinois House debating death-penalty abolition
St. Louis stocks SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The Illinois House has just started debating a bill to abolish the death penalty. If it passes, it would return to the Senate. Supporters are trying to get it passed to Gov. Pat Quinn as early as today. We'll update here....

Illinois Senate President John Cullerton's son sentenced after DUI in state SUV
The young Cullerton’s Guilty Plea was in relation to the April 18, 2010 incident in the popular River North area of Chicago when he was stopped by Chicago police while driving a state-issued 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid in the 800 block of North Dearborn.  Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, father of the DUI-convicted driver, admitted that the state-owned vehicle should not have been driven by his son.  After the inexcusable incident in April, John Cullerton returned the vehicl...

Cigarette tax has smokers thinking twice
Gino Samy spends nearly $70 a week for his pack-a-day Smoking habit. Now that state lawmakers are considering raising Cigarette taxes by a dollar, the Chicago resident thinks it's time to use the money he spends on Smoking -- roughly $3,650 a year -- on a Vacation instead. "Paying almost $10 for (a pack of) cigarettes? That's a lot," said Samy, 35. And then to tack on another dollar? "It's time for quitting." Gov. Pat Quinn and top lawmakers are hoping to generate $377 million for education by...

Death Penalty Support Wanes Amid Errors and Debate
A little more than one generation after the United States Supreme Court reinstalled the death penalty as a sentencing option in criminal cases, and despite otherwise strong support for tough-on-crime laws, Capital Punishment in America is markedly on the wane. Executions are down dramatically. Death sentences are being recommended less frequently by juries and endorsed less often by judges. And wrongfully convicted death-row inmates in increasing numbers are being released from Prison as a resul...

Man charged with killing Sabina O'Donnell could face death penalty
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for the 19-year-old man charged in the Murder of Northern Liberties waitress Sabina Rose O'Donnell last June, lawyers in the case said Wednesday. Assistant District Attorney Richard Sax cited the "horrific" Sexual Assault on the 20-year-old O'Donnell as a reason to pursue capital charges against alleged killer Donte Johnson, as well as charges of Robbery and Burglary that Johnson faces in the case. Sax has filed a notice of aggravating circumstan...

Wife, two others to face death penalty in airman's slaying
Clark County prosecutors decided Wednesday to seek the death penalty for three of four defendants charged in the slaying of Air Force Staff Sgt. Nathan Paet in a plot authorities said was devised by the airman's wife and her lover. Prosecutors will seek Capital Punishment against Michelle Paet, 29; Michael Rodriguez, 31; and Corry Hawkins, 33. All were indicted by a Grand Jury last month on charges of Murder, Conspiracy to commit murder and Burglary. Rodriguez and Hawkins also face a fourth char...

Illinois about to institute massive tax hikes
There's no question that Illinois is in an economic basket case. It might be in the worst fiscal shape of any state in the union. So how does Illinois plan to dig itself out of the hole it's in? Taxes, taxes and more taxes: Springfield sources are confirming that Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Pat Quinn have struck a deal to almost double the state Income Tax, boosting the individual levy from 3% now to 5.25% and hiking the corporate rate to 8.4% -- the highest of any state in the unio...

REDSTATE: Gov. Pat Quinn (D, IL) about to destroy IL Amazon affliliates? I should note that the St
REDSTATE: Gov. Pat Quinn (D, IL) about to destroy IL Amazon affliliates? I should note that the State Rep. who wanted to do this in Tennessee — a long-time Incumbent — was handily defeated last November. But that’s why Tennessee is Tennessee . . . and Illinois is Illinois. ...

Illinois businesses, come to Indiana; we won't tax you to death!
Dear Chicagoans and Illinois residents, how much longer are you going to stand for the insane taxes that Illinois imposes upon you for the privilege of living in the Land of Lincoln?  What don't these politicians understand?  Did they not hear the uproar of the last election?  People are fed up with Big Government.  Instead of asking us to pay more to fund your corrupt and inefficient practices, maybe you can downsize the bureaucracies that don't contribute at all to the econ...

Senate president's son pleads guilty to DUI in state car
A son of Illinois Senate President John Cullerton pleaded guilty Friday to a Misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence of Alcohol and was sentenced to Probation, ordered to seek treatment for Alcohol abuse and fined $1,250. Garritt M. Cullerton, 27, also pleaded guilty to an improper lane usage citation, according to the Cook County state's attorney's office. Cullerton was stopped in downtown Chicago during the early morning hours of last April 18 while he was driving an SUV registered...

Death penalty repeal fails by one vote
Posted by Barton Lorimor 4:53 p.m. Efforts to Repeal Illinois’ death penalty failed in the House by one vote. The issue has been placed on postponed consideration. Pro-repeal Lobbyists said immediately after the vote that Rep. Patrick Verschoore was supposed to vote in favor of the measure. Rep. Rosemary Mulligan was the only representative not to cast a vote. She is reportedly out of town due to an illness, but would have voted, “Yes.”. Video of the vote board… ...

Convicted killer to decide whether to testify at his death-penalty hearing
By midmorning Friday, Gerald Drummond must make what could be a life-changing decision: Should he take the stand and ask a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury to spare him from Lethal Injection? He could try to explain himself, to beg for mercy from jurors who in December found him Guilty of first-degree Murder in a 2007 double killing in Tacony. But if he does, Drummond must submit to cross-examination by Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega - a Veteran prosecutor known for subtle but rigor...

The most overlooked story of the week
* I told subscribers about this bill after it passed the House Wednesday. It was approved by the Senate yesterday and has received zero media coverage outside of myself and the Champaign News-Gazette. Here is the paper’s story… A Budget reform process that proponents say will help bring fiscal discipline to Illinois cleared the House Wednesday, 85-26. It would generally limit spending to revenue projections, require the Governor to set annual Budget priorities and would require reg...

House leaves town and the Taxpayers Federation posts the rates
* As you’re probably aware of by now, the House has left town without acting on the proposed tax hike… “The votes aren’t here in the House yet,” said Rep. Frank Mautino, D-Spring Valley, a House Budget expert. “There’s not 60 votes.” House Speaker Michael Madigan has not commented on the proposal yet, but was expected to meet with Gov. Pat Quinn behind closed doors today to fine-tune the plan. The Governor also has been asking individual lawmakers into his o

Cullertons son pleads guilty to DUI
The son of Illinois Senate President John Cullerton pleaded guilty in Cook County traffic court Friday morning to driving drunk in his father’s state-owned SUV last April. Dressed in a gray suit, Garritt Cullerton, 27, quietly plead guilty to a Misdemeanor drunken driving charge. Judge Sharon O. Johnson sentenced Cullerton to two years conditional discharge — similar to Probation — plus mandatory Alcohol treatment, 240 hours of Community Service and fined him $1,250. He also re...