The Good Governor has said that he had to do this because the capital punishment system in Illinois was deeply flawed. It is very hard to believe that it is any more flawed in Illinois than it is in any other state where it is on the books. For the capital punishment system throughout America is flawed, it is just that in Illinois you had a desperate politician that dredged up these flaws and brought them to light. For example, the Governor says that some of the4sse dudes on Death Row in Illinois are mentally retarded or of below normal intelligence. He says that these dudes should not be executed. But ever since capital punishment began in America, the mentally retarded and mentally incapacitated have been executed, at a rate many times more than those of the population that did not have these problems. America has known for a long time now that it has many of these types sitting on its Death Rows. They have done nothing about it. They have actually defended executing these types, saying that they did the crime, so they must be punished, etc. Their mental deficiencies or problems are no excuse, so the American Pigs have said over and over again when asked why these types of people are executed in America. In fact, America has refused to sign an international treaty regarding use of the Death Penalty, in part because the treaty said that the mentally ill or incapacitated could not be executed, and America said that it reserved the right to execute these types if it saw fit to do so. This same mentality also was used towards children, the treaty said that no children could be given the Death Penalty, and once again America objected, saying that it had the right to execute children if they saw fit to. It wasn't like America had never done that, anyway. Kids as young as 13 have been executed in America per orders of a court. This has not happened in quite a while, because the execution of juveniles in America dates back to the days when the legal system was not as cumbersome as it is now, and court cases went through the system much more quickly, meaning that an accused juvenile had a chance of being executed while he was still a juvenile because his appeals would all have been exhausted much sooner than they are today. Today, a convicted juvenile does not have much of a chance of being executed before he becomes an adult because the appeals process is very lengthy and would not be completed before he becomes an adult. America pointed that out when they objected to the treaty about the death penalty, and said that was why they did not have to agree with not executing juveniles because they did not do it much anymore. However, even with this, America still said that they reserved the right to execute a juvenile should the occasion ever arise again. Since shit like this executing juveniles and the mentally incapacitated seems to be such a great part of the American Capital Punishment system, is it any wonder why that system is so deeply flawed like the Governor says that it is? These flaws become even more obvious when you factor in things like race, like the fact that a disproportionate number of Death Row inmates in America are black, and people of color, much more so that the percentage of these types in the general prison population, or the population of America in general. Once again, America says that these people did the crimes and they must pay the price, etc. But why would things be so skewered like they are if what the Pigs said was true? Obviously, it is not true. It is true that in addition to being people of color, the same disproportionate number of Death Row inmates in America come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, i.e., the poor. America is well known for picking on its poor, and blaming them for all the ills of society because the poor do not usually have the means to adequately defend themselves against this. Being poor, they have to concentrate all of their energies on just living from day to day. Their lives are quite hard enough thank you, and when they have to try and defend themselves against some kind of capital charge or another, they don't even have anywhere near the access to the means to adequately defend themselves, and are generally at the mercy of the Pigs. No matter how large the flaws in the system,. If the defendants do not have the means to defend themselves properly, they are going to take a fall well over 90% of the time, and that is exactly what happens in capital punishment cases in America. The vast majority of the defendants in these cases are poor, and they cannot defend themselves adequately, and they end up on Death Row. Yet, George Ryan and the rest of the politicians are making like they just discovered these facts and are going to take action upon them. These are the same men that created these systems in the first place, and now they suddenly are discovering that these systems are badly flawed? Yeah, sure thing. Why didn't they see these large flaws when they created the systems? Because they did not give a fuck about those flaws then, and they don't now, but they will act as if they do if they find it politically expedient to do so.
All of their actions will be based on politics and the mentality that Americans have about the Death Penalty, namely, that is the worst form of punishment that there is. To have your death be a public execution is supposed to be the worst that there is as far as justice goes. That is the mentality that has been drilled into Americans ever since capital punishment was established here, and the mentality that drove the system to be the way that it is. The lawmakers and politicians felt that they were dealing with the worst of the bad when they dealt with these issues, because only those types would require attention from this part of the system. So they went after pure bloodlust and made it all a type of hang 'em-high mentality that would satisfy the lustful cravings for revenge that society would have towards these people. The process that decided all of this was put on the back burner in favor of punishment and death. So, that process became badly flawed as a result, and suddenly there were more than a couple of people that ended up in this part of the system that did not deserve to be there, and finding out about these people was what spurred Governor Ryan into investigating the whole process, or so he says. One of the biggest flaws that came out of this is the mentality that the death penalty is worse than life imprisonment. In reality, executing these criminals gives them an easy way out. Yes, their deaths are public spectacles, but they are swift and merciful, and then it is all over for the criminal. Since many of these criminals are so young, executing them before they reach middle age is doing them a favor. For when one is in prison, one becomes one of the living dead, you exist but you don't live. You see life passing you by outside of the walls, and there is nothing that you can do about it. As society progresses, you stagnate. You do so in an environment that is the definition of Hell on Earth, a prison. A place where the baddest of the bad, the most evil of the evil, and the craziest of the insane all live together in close quarters 24/7. The environment is so hellish that you slowly lose your sanity the longer that you stay there. Bit by bit, little by little, you sanity crumbles away. There is nothing that you can do about it either, for you can never escape this environment that is doing this to you. So, life in prison is actually a slow, hideous death, one where you die slowly from the inside out, a supreme torture, and the real worst that the penal system can offer. Sure, there are 3 meals a day, but it is all bargain basement shitty food, no gourmet specials. Yes, they do have access to TVs, but that only gives the criminals a window to see just how much life is passing them by while they stagnate and further their mental torture. Taking a young man of 18 and making him spend 50-80 years in an environment like this is much more cruel than executing him when he is 31 and letting him off from his torment early. The American people need to be made aware of that fact and if they were, then the capital punishment system could be fixed as it would no longer be applicable, but then we would have to turn our attentions to the deep flaws in the system that sends people to prison in general, and then we would have true criminal justice system reform, and I would have another column to write, but I have enough ideas to write about as it is, so these reforms would be greatly appreciated as far as I was concerned, and many other people in America as well would feel the same way. If thesse deceptions that i have written about are no longer ignored, then reform is possible. If they continue to be ignored, then only further deterioration of things is possible.