Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the unfairness and immorality of the death penalty system, leading the speaker to abandon involvement with it.
George Ryan's quote highlights the inherent flaws of the Illinois death penalty system, which he describes as arbitrary and capricious. By labeling the system as immoral, he emphasizes his decision to withdraw from any role that contributes to the executions, advocating for a reevaluation of capital punishment based on fairness and ethical considerations.
In practice
During a debate on capital punishment at a law school, this quote can highlight the ethical implications of the death penalty.
In the US the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed.
Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error: error in determining guilt and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having?
Ultimately, we must either abandon our reliance on stop and search or abandon any hope for a criminal justice system grounded in equality, impartiality and fairness.
If an African-American or a recent immigrant - or anyone else, for that matter - can't feel secure walking into a police station or up to a police officer to report a crime, because of a fear that they're not going to be treated well, then everything else that we promise is on a shaky foundation.
Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.
The power to arrest - to deprive a citizen of liberty - must be used fairly, responsibly, and without bias.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.
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