While recent polling shows that a majority of Americans favor the death penalty, in at least the abstract, those same polls show there has never been a ground swell of support for executing the innocent. Illinois, since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the Seventies  has executed twelve people while releasing thirteen from death row as innocent.   In response to Illinois’s failing scheme of capital punishment Governor Ryan of Illinois created a panel to examine the application of the death penalty.

The Illinois Commission on Capital Punishment,  the so-called Ryan Commission,  was comprised of a wide assortment of academics, prosecutors, judges and many others.  The Commission’s final report, took well over 200 pages and came up with a solid list of 85 recommendations on how to overhaul the state’s death penalty system to reduce the chance of sending the innocent people to their deaths and to correct other problems with the state’s death penalty law. The 85 recommendations set forth by the Commission are overwhelmingly positive, most are rather inexpensive and all, save one or two, applicable to every state that chooses to retain capital punishment.

The Ryan Commission's results can be broadly grouped into eight groups, including:

1. the system can not handle numerous capital cases without breaking down irreparably and aggravating circumstances should be drastically limited;

2. police lack the training to properly handle homicide cases, especially line-ups, confessions (coerced and otherwise), & informants;

3. the capital litigation system is dramatically under funded;

4. expansion of mitigating circumstances;
     
5. guidelines & timelines for cases at all levels;

6. mandatory turning over of all evidence even remotely suggesting  innocence not only at trial but through all rounds of appeal (this disclosure will  be court monitored);

7. mandatory legal education for judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys & police; and

8. the Commission was "unanimous in the belief that no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death."

As part of an ongoing project the Ryan Commission has been compared to the death penalty jurisdictions in the Northeast, the federal government as well as Florida. The results, while not yet finalized are worthy of review.  No jurisdiction came close to meeting even simple majority of the recommendations.  Each state also had its own unique problems that will be addressed at a later point, however, the initial data is broken down into a chart by each state and are as follows:

Rough drafts

Illinois

Working drafts completed

Florida
New Jersey
New York
Pennsylvania
United States
Cross comparison

To be worked on this Fall

Connecticut (not yet completed)
New Hampshire (not yet completed)