January 31, 2000
Illinois Gov. George Ryan on Monday imposed a moratorium on the state's death penalty. All lethal injections will be postponed indefinitely pending an investigation into why more executions have been overturned than carried out since 1977, when Illinois reinstated capital punishment.
"We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system -- 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death," Ryan told CNN. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied."
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/"I hope this commission will truly and thoroughly and honestly examine the facts of these 13 cases," Bill Ryan, chairman of the Illinois Moratorium Project told the Chicago Tribune. "We need an investigation of why half the cases are overturned. We need to investigate what's been going on."