Yesterday, we began reviewing the Court’s county by county distribution of death penalty appeals, beginning in 1994. Today, we will begin by reviewing the data from 2004 through 2010.
The Court decided only two death penalty appeals each year from 2004 through 2007. In 2004, the Court decided one case in Cook and one case
This week, we continue our parallel look at automatic death penalty appeals here and over at our sister blog, the California Supreme Court Review. Last week, we reviewed the Illinois Supreme Court’s year-by-year caseload from 1990 until the death penalty was abolished in this state. This week, we’re going to take a look at
Yesterday, we began our comparative review of the Illinois and California Supreme Court’s experience with direct review of death penalty judgments. Today, we reach the second half of our first analysis – how often did the Illinois Supreme Court reverse death judgments?
In Table 529, we report the reversal rate, divided into three classes –
This week, we begin a dual project on the Illinois Supreme Court Review and the California Supreme Court Review – comparing the two states’ experience with automatic appeals of death penalty verdicts.
Illinois has had a tumultuous recent history with death penalty verdicts. Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in 1999, citing concern
For the past two weeks, we’ve been considering the Illinois Supreme Court’s rate of unanimity and dissent in civil and criminal cases between 2000 and 2015. Today, we address a related historical issue. Until 2011, when the state of Illinois abolished the death penalty, appeals in death cases were heard in the first instance at