I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error.

I'm going to sleep well tonight knowing that I made the right decision.

While I have served in public office for 30 years, my professional training is as a pharmacist, not a lawyer or an accountant.

I don't know that we do. I had thought ours worked well, but I had never examined it too closely. A lot of media people will be looking for a case that might make Texas Governor George Bush think twice about what he's doing.

I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error.

Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

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.