Illinois: Gov. Quinn (D) to sign Death Penalty repeal today

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Nice! That chunk of continuous abolitionist states in the Midwest grows larger. North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Meh, it's not like anyone was executed in the meantime while he was waiting to sign it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Meh, it's not like anyone was executed in the meantime while he was waiting to sign it.

Indeed......and as Franzl noted, they so rarely use it, it's basically a symbollic repeal.  If it make Quinn and his cohorts feel good.......hey ok by me.  

There really was no need for this legislation at all.

It's absolutely not "just symbolic". It's symbolic as long as the current status quo prevails in Illinois, but the status quo changes. Previously, the death penalty could have made a comeback through a more or less unilateral decision of some future AG, which was quite realistic. One could certainly imagine Illinois electing someone who decides executions are good and that the state should start prosecuting death penalty cases more frequently. Unlike truly outdated laws, for example, old miscegenation laws that are clearly ruled unconstitutional, never enforced and never coming back (not sure there are any still on the books, but I know Alabama repealed one around 2002 or so), the death penalty statute could very well have made a comeback without legislative action.

Now it would have to go through the entire legislative process, a much less likely (although not entirely impossible) prospect.

As for other states, I believe Connecticut has been considering repeal.

Plus it'll probably save the state several million.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Looking at things from a standpoint completely neutral of any morality of the death penalty, states that have capital punishment statutes that they never use waste millions of dollars in maintaining death row, costs of the court system and appeals, maintaining death row equipment, insurance costs and whatnot. It is a giant money black hole. How much money did New York waste on implementing a death penalty that was never used and thrown out? That's why I'd oppose instating the death penalty in Minnesota even if I wasn't morally against it, it'd waste millions of dollars for something that wouldn't be used for likely decades if ever. From what I understand some Republicans in the legislature felt the same way (A proposal to reinstate it was voted on in Senate committee, but it died 8-2, meaning 2 of the 4 Republicans on the committee also voted against it.)

The state that most needs to abolish its death penalty is Pennsylvania, which has a capital punishment statute that effectively means one can only be sentenced to death, but is virtually impossible to actually get the execution carried out, meaning it has hundreds of people sitting on death row who will never be executed and do nothing but drain the state's money more than a normal life sentence would. This would also finally shut up the "Free Mumia" idiots.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Death row was shut down today. It's completely gone.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No it wasn't formally abolished until yesterday.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Looks nicer on a map now: