I suppose even with a legal document you can have all the facts in front of you and still see what you want to see. It's almost like dysmorphia for legal documents.

Yeah I noticed that, they all tend to cite themselves as evidence...that was one of the main differences I found on this website; it actually bothers to link you to factual legal documents. That way you avoid circular reasoning on your own faulty presumptions 

This guy deserves his sentence but unfortunately he has become the "poster child" (literally) for many rabid ANTI groups saying that the death penalty kills innocents. He has groups all over the world who only hear his side of the story and use it to scream against the DP. They never bother to read the whole story. While his execution is WAAAAAAAYYYY overdue I think the politicians are worried that if they do put him to death it will be like handing the rabid campaigners for the ANTI groups a loaded gun so that they can scream to the world that the US executed "an innocent man".
Its such a crock of political BS and an unfortunate result of too many ignorant people who have access to anti propaganda but who won't take the time to read the facts.

That was my thinking. There could be so many repercussions from executing him politically. Anyone else see SHP getting a little irked off  ? This is a case where justice and the media have become grossly intertwined so that the average person cannot see through to the bare facts any more. This case is a "poster child" (IMO) for not letting advocacy and media groups take over all the coverage. Yes, they are entitled to get involved (and potentially, good can come from them) but the way they have taken this case and run with it (possibly regretting their choice of "innocent" inmate at a later date...) is obscuring the running of the CJS and creating a 'pop' justice that may have no true correlation to 'actual' justice....   

It seems that this case has jumped a lot of hurdles that others haven't managed though. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to bend the rules an additional time....

Cheers for the link. Real interested to see how this one goes. I've thought it through, and either way it swings I can just see some sort of uproar arising from it 

If he gets off/his sentence commuted --> backlash over the interference of the media, use of the cause celebre ... etc...

If he doesn't get off and his sentence is affirmed --> same sort of thing, cause celebre = extreme anti fallout.

Watching with interest.

It appalls me that Quinn was talking to an actor (Martin Sheen) and to Sister Prejean instead of the law enforcement community and judges in reaching his decision to end the death penalty in Illinois.  Surely it is the Governor's prime duty to protect the citizens of his state and not just take on the opinions of actors and known anti's.

Clearly fame > relevant qualifications and experience.

Satire:dead.

Quote

Baston's family and lawyers had arranged for a lie detector test in hopes of improving his chances for gubernatorial clemency, when he apparently confessed to something he has denied for 17 years.

"He admitted to the murder," said Carlo Loparo, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

That's about the first one I've read about, that actually confessed before his execution.

Usually they deny it to the bitter end.

Unfortunately from other accounts it appears he denies admitting it later on. 

No, it hasn't changed. The opposition is concerned with the potential act of executing an innocent person. No factually innocent person has been executed in modern times.

I know...I mean just look at one case from the article:

"But such feelings were not shared by Rachel Williams, who still has bullet fragments in her skull from the night in 1996 when Daniel Ramsey shot her in the head, killed her 12-year-old sister, raped and killed her best friend, and wounded two toddlers"

WTF. 

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-09/news/ct-met-illinois-death-row-0310-20110309_1_death-row-death-penalty-death-sentences
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-09/news/ct-met-illinois-death-row-0310-20110309_1_death-row-death-penalty-death-sentences/2
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-03-09/news/ct-met-illinois-death-row-0310-20110309_1_death-row-death-penalty-death-sentences/3

(page 1, 2 and 3)

Quinn's death penalty ban outrages victims' families
March 09, 2011|By Gerry Smith, Stacy St. Clair and Dahleen Glanton, Tribune reporters

Nuccio DiNuzzo, Chicago Tribune
Tom Nicarico thought his family's long, emotional wait for justice had finally ended in November 2009 when jurors condemned Brian Dugan to death for the rape and murder of his young daughter.

But Gov. Pat Quinn's decision Wednesday to ban the death penalty in Illinois and commute the sentences of Dugan and 14 other death row inmates to life without parole left Nicarico outraged.

"It's not just the murder of my daughter," he said by telephone from his home in South Carolina. "He murdered two other people's daughters and attacked others. This man earned it, and he's not the only one on death row who earned it."

Nicarico's anger was echoed by many victims' families after they learned of a governor's decision to clear Illinois' death row for the second time in less than a decade.

Karen Bond, 63, whose son, Jerry Weber, was killed by Edward Tenney in 1992, also was upset.

"I was really looking forward to sitting in the front row while they executed this guy," Bond said. "Now the taxpayers of Illinois have to pay his room and board."

The death penalty ban comes about 11 years after then-Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions, citing a Tribune investigative series that exposed how bias, error and incompetence undermined many of the state's nearly 300 capital cases. Then nearly three years later, only days before leaving office in January 2003, Ryan pardoned four death row inmates and commuted the death sentences of more than 160 prisoners to life in prison.

Far fewer inmates were affected by Quinn's decision. And not all relatives of their victims were upset. At least one family was divided.

As a 9-year-old five years ago, Quincy Newburn had urged a jury to give the death sentence to Dion Banks, who was convicted of killing his mother in 2001 during a carjacking while Quincy and his brother, who were 4 and 5 at the time, watched from the back seat.

"I've already forgiven him for what he did, but I want to see justice in action," said Quincy, who is now 14.

Quincy's father, Tyrone Newburn Sr., 53, once felt the same way but has since changed his mind — though not because he has forgiven Banks.

"Just putting them to death would be too easy for the offender, so I figure it would be more of a punishment to let them rot in jail for the rest of their lives," said the elder Newburn, a maintenance worker for Chicago Public Schools.

Quinn's decision Wednesday meant that Andrew Urdiales has now been cleared from death row twice. A former Marine who claims he killed eight women in two states, Urdiales was first sentenced to death in 2002 before Ryan commuted his punishment to life in prison. Then he was put back on death row in 2004 after a Livingston County jury found him guilty of shooting and stabbing a young mother from Indiana.

Urdiales' sister, Cynthia, burst into tears when told Wednesday that Quinn had commuted her brother's sentence to life in prison. His family and attorneys had hoped his life would be spared on the grounds that he is mentally ill, a defense that appellate courts had rejected.

"I'm shocked," she said. "We hoped for this for a long time, but I didn't think it would happen. I'm amazed and thankful."

Richard Runge, whose son, Paul, was on death row for the 1997 rape and murder of a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, was "elated" that his son's life would be spared.

"He is still my son," he said. "I still love him. The Good Lord will decide what Paul's fate will be."

But such feelings were not shared by Rachel Williams, who still has bullet fragments in her skull from the night in 1996 when Daniel Ramsey shot her in the head, killed her 12-year-old sister, raped and killed her best friend, and wounded two toddlers.

Williams was so determined to see her former boyfriend receive the death penalty that she relived the gruesome details of the shooting before a jury twice — the second time after the Illinois Supreme Court ordered a new trial. On Wednesday, Williams said she was reliving that night all over again, knowing that Ramsey's life would be spared while her sister's was not.

"Nobody knows what it's like to hear your sister say, 'Don't shoot me,'" said Williams, 32, of Peoria. "Why should he be able to sit there in prison until he turns over and dies? It's not fair."

Dugan was sentenced to death for the 1983 rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico, a 10-year-old Naperville girl. Dugan had been serving two life sentences for two other rape-murder cases, but his death sentence brought a major chapter of a long-running, controversial case to a close. Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez — two of three men originally charged with the girl's murder — served years on death row before they were cleared.

Dugan's attorney, Steven Greenberg, said the legacy of the Nicarico case will be the deep flaws those wrongful prosecutions exposed in Illinois' criminal justice system.

"The fact that Brian Dugan will spend the rest of his life in jail is inconsequential," Greenberg said. "Had we killed Rolando Cruz, that would have been the moral wrong."

But Roger Schnorr, whose sister, Donna, 27, of Geneva, was abducted, raped and murdered by Dugan in 1984, called Quinn's decision "quite aggravating." Schnorr said he met with Quinn for two hours a few weeks ago — along with prosecutors and other victims' relatives — and said the governor seemed "quite uninformed."

Tom Nicarico said his family was never consulted while the governor was mulling his decision. Nicarico said Quinn had given Illinois' most heinous criminals the ultimate gift.

"There are 15 guys who are celebrating in prison today," Nicarico said. "And all of them took a life, at least one, and some took more than one. What Gov. Quinn did is he gave them their lives back."

Quinn consulted with retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and met with Sister Helen Prejean, the inspiration for the movie "Dead Man Walking."

Screwed again by the poisonous penguin! I bet she is practicing her bows and awards speeches already!        

Don't forget the book deal...

Not surprised really just hacked off. Think how many people he has hurt by commuting those 15 sentences. It's a kick in the teeth. All the potential parents, partners, siblings, friends, grandparents etc. I can't imagine how they feel right now  interested to see if there is a backlash.

Mistake is such an inappropriate word here.

To me, if you made a mistake, you honestly didn't realise your actions would result in the reaction that you caused through them.

If we look at a definition for example:

"An error; a blunder; A pitch which was intended to be pitched in a hard to hit location, but instead ends up in an easy to hit place; To understand wrongly, taking one thing for another; To make an error, to do something in wrong way"
(en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mistake)

For instance, a mistake in the context of shooting someone (if we stay roughly on track) would be accidentally shooting somebody you did not know was there on a hunting trip.

So for me, using the word "mistake" in this context is completely outrageous. He aimed to kill the poor man. There was no mistake. How could he have "understood wrongly" that it would do anything but what it did? In terms of law you have the 'actus reus' (guilty act) and the 'mens rea' (guilty mind). If you have both, I cannot see how you ever could call it a true mistake.

To make a mistake is to do something without the intention of causing the consequence it resulted in. So to me, Baston did not make a "mistake", he just patently did a WRONG and BAD thing completely knowingly.   

Agreed. Male or female, I don't care. This sort of crime is just plain disgusting and needs a decent punishment.

That is so sad 

R.I.P Kathy Taft    

Hope the murderer gets what he deserves.

Well...interested to see how this one goes...I feel so sorry for the families of the victims who hang in the balance