13:55 ET<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\nIllinois has become the 16th US state to abolish the death penalty, after the governor signed a bill making permanent a 10-year-old moratorium on executions.<\/p>\n
Governor Pat Quinn signed the bill after spending two months consulting with victims’ families, prosecutors, religious leaders and others.<\/p>\n
Former Governor George Ryan ordered a moratorium in 2000 amid concerns innocent people could be executed.<\/p>\n
Thirty-four states still have the death penalty.<\/p>\n
‘Right thing’<\/span><\/p>\nIn the state capital Springfield, Mr Quinn, a Democrat, said he had followed his conscience, the Chicago Tribune reported.<\/p>\n
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history,” he told reporters. “I think it’s the right, just thing to abolish the death penalty.”<\/p>\n
In a statement accompanying the bill signing, he wrote the Illinois death penalty system was flawed and could lead to wrongful convictions.<\/p>\n
Mr Quinn also commuted to life in prison the sentences of 15 death row inmates.<\/p>\n
Mr Ryan’s move in 2000 came after more than a dozen condemned inmates were freed from Illinois death row, some when journalists showed they had been wrongly convicted.<\/p>\n
His successors, former Governor Rod Blagojevich and Mr Quinn, kept the moratorium in place.<\/p>\n
The Illinois legislature approved the ban two months ago, and it takes effect on 1 July.<\/p>\n
The number of annual executions in the US has declined dramatically since the peak of 98 in 1999, to 46 last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.<\/p>\n
Since the US Supreme Court allowed capital punishment in 1976 after a brief national moratorium, Texas has executed the most offenders, with 466.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n
The rest is here:
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