Title: Group Launches Obama 'Willie Horton' Ad Source:
National Campaign Fund URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0IcnYWGSSE Published:Apr 21, 2008 Author:Staff Post Date:2008-04-21 22:35:27 by Horse Keywords:None Views:99 Comments:3
This is weak. Obama has changed his stand on the death penalty now that he is running for President. They should have added the information that Obama tried to make it illegal for the law abiding citizens of Illinois to use guns to defend themselves against home invasions.
It's not a bad ad at all. I agree that his position on the 2A should've been emphasized.
On the tube today, one station played all 3 candidates position ads on 'closing the loophole on gun shows'. All were nearly identical. If criminal behaviour were that important, all 3 would take a solid position on illegals. But we know, we all know........... they work for the same syndicate.
As a country, the USA has deeply injured the world and it's a national obligation to right that wrong as much as possible. For us to try to safeguard our 2nd Amendment rights at the expense of lives of innocents worldwide doesn't fly in my book. -- Pinguinite http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=78060&Disp=44#C44
This conveniently "forgets" that the justice system in Illinois, from 2001 to 2003, was raked over the coals for using false testimony and torture, and placing innocent people on death row. It was a mess and led to the January 2003 blanket commutation for everybody on death row in Illinois.
Jan. 1: The Capital Litigation Trust Fund is established, providing funding for defense attorneys to pay investigative costs and hire independent forensic experts in capital cases.
Jan. 19: In a plea-bargain arrangement that will soon result in his release, former Death Row prisoner Darrell Cannon agrees to abandon a claim that he was tortured by Burge's officers.
March 9: James W. "Preacher" Schneider is sentenced to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty in Milwaukee to federal racketeering charges, including the Gauger murders.
May 2: The Center on Wrongful Convictions releases a report documenting how mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony has helped send 46 innocent Americans to Death Row.
June 29: Lawyers handling capital appeals for the Office of the State Appellate Defender agree to launch an effort seeking clemency for all Illinois Death Row prisoners.
July 27: Groups interested in pursuing blanket clemency quietly convene at the Chicago office of OSAD's Capital Litigation Division for an organizational session.
Sept. 27: The Tribune discloses that State's Atty. Devine has offered deals under which additional Death Row prisoners could be released if they abandon torture allegations.
Nov. 20: The first in a series of closed-door strategy sessions on blanket clemency is held at the Capital Litigation Division office in Chicago.
Dec. 16-19: The Tribune publishes a series exposing coerced, fabricated and otherwise tainted confessions in 247 Cook County murder cases from 1991 to 2001.
2002
Jan. 4: Corethian Bell, from whom Chicago police had coerced a confession that he killed his mother, is released from Cook County Jail after DNA establishes his innocence.
Feb. 8: Gov. Ryan amendatorially vetoes an anti-terrorism bill to strike a death penalty provision and add reform measures recommended by his Commission on Capital Punishment.
March 1: The Illinois Supreme Court mandates standards for defense lawyers in capital cases and pointedly reminds prosecutors that their duty is to seek justice, not win convictions.
March 2: Ryan, after an appearance at the University of Oregon School of Law, tells reporters he will consider commuting all Illinois death sentences.
March 7: The Center on Wrongful Convictions reports that 26 innocent people have been convicted of murder in Illinois as a result of false confessions since the 1950s.
April 15: The Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment issues its report, calling for a revamp of the criminal justice system.
April 24: A special prosecutor is appointed to investigate whether Burge and others used torture to obtain confessions from scores of men, 10 of whom remain under death sentence.
April 25: The Center on Wrongful Convictions releases a report showing that false jailhouse-snitch testimony sent 38 innocent Americans to Death Row.
June 24: The Daily Southtown reports Gino DiVito promises to report soon on his investigation into the Ford Heights case.
Sept. 9: The Chicago Sun-Times editorializes against blanket clemency, saying it "ignores the reality that each case must stand on its own facts."
Oct. 13: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch publishes a poll showing Illinois voters almost evenly divided on the issue of blanket clemency, with 45.5 percent in favor and 49.7 percent opposed.
Oct. 14-28: Compelling testimony of victims' family members at clemency hearings for 142 Death Row prisoners draws massive media attention, overshadowing arguments for clemency.
Oct. 22: Ryan says he "has pretty much ruled out" granting clemency to everyone on Death Row but adds, "That doesn't mean I won't do it."
Oct. 25: The Peoria Journal Star approvingly notes that Ryan appears to have ruled out blanket clemency.
Oct. 26: The Bloomington Pantagraph says commutations should be "done on a case-by-case basis, not as a blanket measure opposition to Illinois' death penalty procedures."
Oct. 29: The Tribune says the clemency hearings exposed blanket clemency "as something that can be embraced only by those who flat-out oppose the death penalty."
Nov. 3: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports a poll in the wake of the hearings: 55.1 percent of Illinois voters oppose blanket clemency and 39.9 percent favor it.
Nov. 14: Ryan announces the pardon, based on innocence, of Paula Gray, whose coerced statement was instrumental in the convictions of the Ford Heights Four.
Nov. 18: A letter signed by more than 650 Illinois lawyers urges Ryan to commute the sentences all Death Row prisoners to life without parole.
Nov. 19: The Illinois House of Representatives overrides Ryan's amendatory veto of the anti-terrorism bill.
Nov. 21: The New York Times says Ryan "should do the right thing, and commute all the death] sentences to life in prison."
Dec. 1: Twenty-one retired judges, including former Criminal Division Presiding Judge Richard J. Fitzgerald, urge commutation of all Illinois death sentences.
Dec. 6: Ryan holds the first of two meetings with murder-victim survivors who urge him not commute sentences.
Dec. 15: Three dozen prisoners exonerated from the nation's Death Rows call for blanket clemency at a national gathering the Northwestern law school.
Dec. 16: The former Death Row prisoners march from Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet the governor's office in Chicago to present a letter calling for blanket clemency.
Dec. 18: Prosecutors free four Chicago men wrongfully convicted of a 1997 torture murder based on false testimony by a police informant and a coerced confession.
Dec. 19: Ryan, in pardoning exonerated Death Row prisoners Cruz and Gauger, says he is perplexed that victims' survivors sometimes feel entitled to have someone executed.
Dec. 30: Some 400 law professors advise Ryan that it would be proper to use executive clemency address systemic flaws in the capital punishment system.
Dec. 31: Rev. Jesse Jackson, after visiting with Death Row prisoners at the Pontiac Correctional Center, calls for blanket clemency.
2003
Jan. 3: Ryan meets with families of men and women on Death Row, who plead for the prisoners' lives.
Jan. 7: Former Death Row prisoners Cobb, Gauger and Porter call for blanket clemency and pardons for prisoners tortured Burge.
Jan. 10: Ryan pardons four men on Death Row in speech at DePaul University College of Law.
Jan. 11, 2003 Gov. Ryan announces clemency decision at Northwestern University School of Law.
This conveniently "forgets" that the justice system in Illinois, from 2001 to 2003, was raked over the coals for using false testimony and torture, and placing innocent people on death row. It was a mess and led to the January 2003 blanket commutation for everybody on death row in Illinois.