The timing has a certain resonance. Last week Ray Krone became the 100th person on death row to walk away an innocent man: after ten years behind bars, DNA evidence proved that the Arizonan did not commit the murder for which he was convicted. Now a commission appointed by the governor of Illinois, George Ryan, to study the death penalty has released a report suggesting no fewer than 85 ways to improve the process. Two years ago, Mr Ryan, a Republican who had previously supported the death penalty, declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois, having lost confidence that the process could be carried out fairly and without error. He appointed a 14-per-son commission to study the process; its members included Paul Simon, a former senator; William Webster, the erstwhile chief of both the CIA and the FBI; and Scott Turow, a novelist who helped to set free one of the 13 innocents so far released from death row in Illinois.
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