U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the second-ranking member of the U.S. Senate, said today that he has come to believe that states should not impose the death penalty.
However, he said he doesn’t want to abolish all federal authority to use the ultimate sanction.
“When it comes to those national crimes involving terrorism, treason, which endanger the lives of many Americans, those, I think, should be the compelling exceptions,” Durbin said.
Following a breakfast Durbin attended in Springfield to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., Durbin told The State Journal-Register that he has always supported the death penalty, but also believed “we have to be very careful to avoid discrimination.”
But he said that in the process of examining the issue over the years, including his role as a senator in questioning nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, he has also noted views of late Justice Harry Blackmun, and newly retired Justice John Paul Stevens, both of whom came to believe the death penalty could not be administered fairly.
“They both at the end of their careers came to the same conclusion,” Durbin said, “that after a lifetime of supporting the death penalty and trying to make it fair, that we had largely failed as a nation, and I cannot escape their wisdom on this issue. I really believe that on reflection, the burden is now on those supporting the death penalty to prove its fairness.”
“Life in prison is penalty enough,” Durbin added. “I believe that we have to bring an end to the death penalty.”
Durbin, a Springfield resident and assistant majority leader of the U.S. Senate, said his position “has evolved in my mind over the years,” and he’s come to his new conclusion “with a lot of reflection.”
“There are many people who commit heinous crimes, and I’d be the first to stand up with emotion and say they should lose their lives,” Durbin said. “But when I look at the unfairness of it, the fact that the poor and people of color are most often the victims when it comes to the death penalty, and how many cases we’ve gotten wrong now that we have DNA evidence to back us up, I mean, it just tells me life imprisonment is penalty enough.”
During an impromptu interview after the King breakfast, Durbin agreed when asked if the death penalty should be abolished “nationwide.” But in a later conversation by telephone, he said that he still wrestles with proper sanctions for “terrorism and crimes of that nature,” and said then that acts of terrorism and treason should be the “compelling exceptions.”
Last week, the Illinois General Assembly sent Gov. Pat Quinn a bill to end the death penalty for future cases in Illinois. Durbin said he is not telling fellow Democrat Quinn what action to take on the issue.
“I will not lobby him, because I think it’s a matter of conscience,” Durbin said. “But I believe that we should put an end to the death penalty.”
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