Governor of Illinois to rule on 150 death penalties

The death penalty debate in the United States is at a watershed today as the Governor of Illinois, George Ryan, decides on whether to commute the sentences of most inmates on the state's Death Row.

The Governor, who leaves office on Monday under the shadow of a bribery scandal, announced last night that he was pardoning four prisoners facing execution. Three were set to walk free while one faced a different jail term for another crime.

He said: "I am pardoning them of the crimes for which they were wrongfully prosecuted and sentenced to die."

Intense interest surrounds what the Governor says today regarding most of the remaining prisoners on Death Row. It is thought likely that Mr Ryan will commute all their death sentences to life terms in prison.

This would rekindle controversy in the US over how the death penalty is applied and the fairness of the system, which was reinstated by the US Supreme Court in 1976. Presently, 38 states have the death penalty.

Mr Ryan, a one-term Republican governor, ordered an open-ended moratorium on executions in Illinois two years ago after the state nearly executed 13 Death Row inmates later found to have been wrongfully convicted.

Mr Ryan has hinted at his intention to issue a blanket decision that is likely to see about 150 inmates leave Death Row. The exact number is hard to predict, however. Since his review, a handful of new defendants have been sentenced to death. Moreover, a few Death Row inmates failed to ask to be included in his review.

After a commission investigated the fairness of the Illinois system, Mr Ryan declared that it was "badly broken and flawed". His decision to review most of the cases led to a series of often heart-wrenching public hearings by the state's Pardons Board late last year.

At many hearings, relatives of the murder victims pleaded for the convictions to be maintained. The four pardoned yesterday were, according to sources close to the Governor, victims of police intimidation and had confessions beaten out of them.