Editorial: Brave act to empty death row

It takes courage for a politician to challenge a prevailing norm of society. Inaction is always the easier option, no matter the pull of conscience or principle. George Ryan, the Governor of Illinois, had it easier than most when, two days before leaving office, he emptied the state's death row by commuting the sentences of 156 inmates. Popularity is not a huge issue for an outgoing politician. Nonetheless, Mr Ryan's moral strength in standing up for what he believed should not be underestimated. In a country where 70 per cent of people continue to support the death penalty, and the White House disregards international disapproval of executions, stepping blithely into retirement would have been the comfortable course.

Mr Ryan's misgivings were not drawn from the philosophical issues that disturb so many non-Americans. He seems not to have pondered why the United States, a much more religious society than most in the West, continues to practise capital punishment. Not for him, either, the recognition that nobody has the right to take a human life, even in revenge. Or that the death penalty serves no purpose but the most hollow of vengeance. Mr Ryan was driven purely by pragmatism.

He was a supporter of capital punishment until an investigation three years ago found 13 death row prisoners in Illinois were innocent. That prompted a moratorium on executions, and a comprehensive state review. It identified two practical problems - the possibility that an innocent man would die, and the impossibility of justly deciding who among convicted killers should die.

This was enough to convince Mr Ryan that the Illinois criminal justice system was "arbitrary, capricious and, therefore, immoral" and to order the largest blanket clemency in American history. It should also be enough for the federal Government and the other 37 states that have the death penalty on their statute books to examine the punishment's faulty, ineffectual and sacrilegious nature.

Those hopeful that such a process will occur point to the continued marginalisation of the penalty. Fewer states (13) conducted executions last year than in any year since 1993, and outside the South, where 61 executions took place, only three states - California, Ohio and Missouri - killed anyone. Opponents of the death penalty point also to decreasing popular support. It peaked at 80 per cent in 1994 but has slipped, partly because the increased use of DNA evidence has exonerated condemned prisoners.

It would be folly, however, to expect a nationwide consensus to take root in the US any time soon. Policymakers in the South who remain committed to the death penalty have no greater supporter than President George W. Bush. He presided over 152 executions during his six years as Governor of Texas and brushed off international protests when the federal Government resumed executions in 2001 after a 38-year lapse. He sees capital punishment as a deterrent, a view rendered nonsensical by the 3700 men and women under death sentence in the US today.

If more Governors were to follow Mr Ryan's lead, or more states were to let the death penalty slip into disuse, there would be greater pressure on the President and the states of the South to take a more civilised position. Yet there is no guarantee that the next Illinois Governor will not resume executions. In Maryland, the incoming Republican Governor says he will lift a moratorium imposed last year. But if more American politicians stood up for what was right, not what was easy or best for their careers, the tide would become irresistible. It can hardly be otherwise when the death penalty is so offensive on so many levels.