Death penalty opponents concerned over conference

CHICAGO -- Attorney General Jim Ryan's office will pick up the tab when 42 state and county prosecutors travel to Las Vegas later this month to get tips on winning death penalty cases.

Death penalty opponents complain Ryan is using state money to promote a political agenda in favor of capital punishment -- particularly troubling, they say, in a state that halted executions in 2000 after several men on death row were exonerated and freed.

But Ryan's office says the four-day conference of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation is a legitimate training ground for prosecutors concerned about getting fair results in capital cases.

"The attorney general is promoting nothing more than his duty to uphold the law," said Ryan spokeswoman Lori Bolas.

The attorney general's office invited all 102 county prosecutors to attend the July 24-27 conference, along with lawyers on the attorney general's staff who assist state's attorneys, Bolas said. The office will pick up airfare, $388 hotel bills and $400 registration fees for each attendee.

The money comes from the capital litigation trust fund, set up in 2000 to better train both prosecutors and defense attorneys who handle death penalty cases. The fund also pays for conferences for defense attorneys.

Rob Warden, executive director of the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions, said the prosecutors' group does not advocate a balanced approach to capital cases.

The conference agenda includes sessions on defense expert witnesses who lie and changing the media's "absurd stereotypes" about capital punishment.

"That Jim Ryan would support the death penalty in that way at public expense given the history of the death penalty in Illinois ... is just absolutely outrageous," Warden said.

Gov. George Ryan halted executions in January 2000 because new evidence or faulty trials compelled the state to release 13 people from death row -- one more than Illinois has executed since capital punishment was reinstated 25 years ago.

Jim Ryan, the Republican nominee for governor, supports keeping executions on hold until more reforms are made, Bolas said.

"However, it's still his duty under the law to assist state's attorneys, and they are still prosecuting death penalty cases," she said.

Attorneys who want to join the state's new Capital Litigation Trial Bar -- which certifies lawyers to try death penalty cases -- get credit for seminars conducted by the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation.

This is the second year the attorney general's office has sent prosecutors to the conference.

DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett, a past president of the association, said the group has proposed several reforms to improve the death penalty system.

The annual conference offers training and gives prosecutors a chance to discuss what changes have been made in their states, he said.

"That organization has contributed to fostering reform throughout the country and educating prosecutors that justice is owed not just to the community and the victims, but the defendant as well," Birkett said.

The conference covers several traditional topics, such as writing briefs and preparing closing arguments. But Jane Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty, said some of the sessions don't sound like training, including one that questions whether some released death-row inmates are actually innocent.

Another session promises to address the "assault on capital litigation and capital litigators launched in recent years."

Charles Hoffman, an attorney in the state appellate defender's office, said he has no problem with prosecutors getting training at the conference. But he was surprised by the tone.

"It's amazing to me how defensive this is," Hoffman said.

Birkett said the agenda includes descriptions meant to grab the attention of those attending, but the sessions themselves are balanced.