Professor pens new reforms

The Illinois Senate will consider a series of death penalty reforms this week in an attempt to restructure the state's death penalty laws. The reforms include an amendment, written by an IU law professor, that will be the first of its kind in the country.\nOn Tuesday, the senate will discuss the "Fundamental Justice Amendment," authored by IU professor Joseph Hoffmann, according to a statement. The amendment would be the first in the country to grant the state's Supreme Court the authority to reverse any death sentence by determining if the jury made the right decision -- an amendment Hoffmann said is needed in Illinois and throughout the country.\n"Illinois has had a series of high-profile cases where it turns out that people on death row turned out to be innocent," Hoffmann said.\nAlthough there are currently no cases of innocent persons wrongly executed in the state of Illinois, Hoffmann said the state began to look at their death penalty policies after the Chicago Tribune ran an investigation about them. \nIllinois governor George Ryan then placed a moratorium on all death row inmates until a full investigation of the state's policies could be reviewed.\nThe Illinois Supreme Court can currently review the court's procedures in issuing someone the death penalty, but cannot overturn a conviction simply by asking if the jury's decision was the right decision in the case. Hoffmann's amendment would change that.\nThere are currently 38 states that have the death penalty. Thirty of those states let the jury decide whether the death penalty is appropriate. Four states let the judge decide, and the other four allow for the decision to be made by both the judge and the jury.\nThe death penalty has currently become a growing issue in the country after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June that only juries could hand down the penalty rather than judges. Before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, Indiana changed its law to allow only juries to decide whether to hand down the death penalty.\nThe Illinois Senate has one more week in the legislative session to look at the reforms. Hoffmann said if the state doesn't make a decision on his amendment this week, the policy will see a new legislature and a new governor next year, although Hoffmann isn't worried about the change.\n"The proposal I put forward is actually being supported by both parties in the Illinois Senate," he said. "I have every reason to think that if it doesn't pass in December, it won't be because of problems in the Senate. I have every reason to believe it would be brought back in January."\nIf passed in Illinois, Hoffmann said he hopes his amendment could be looked upon as a model for other states to follow.\nOhio currently has a similar law that allows its Supreme Court limited power to look at the merits of the jury's verdict in a death penalty case, but no state has an amendment as sweeping as Hoffmann's.\n"This law would be the broadest and most comprehensive of the time," he said. "My only fear is that it could get caught up in the politics of the death penalty."\nIU law professor Craig Bradley said he believes Hoffmann's proposal is a great idea and hopes it will catch on across the nation.\n"I think it would be good for other states," Bradley said. "It will allow the courts to review cases on factual merits without having to find a procedural defect for cases that they don't like."\nBradley said Hoffmann's last 15 years studying the death penalty, including lecturing judges around the country on the issue makes Hoffmann a legitimate professor to author an amendment like this.\nAlthough he said he is unsure of what the senate will decide, Hoffmann said he believes his amendment has bipartisan support in Illinois.\n"I think it's the right idea, and I think there's a lot of support for it from both sides of the aisle," he said. "If the legislature and the governor look at this seriously, they will adopt this"