In 1988, I was sentenced to die by lethal injection in the state of Illinois for a crime I did not commit. In 1991, after having my original conviction and sentence overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court due to prosecutorial misconduct, the state retried me and did it again. I was no less innocent in 1991 than I was in 1988.
For 15 years, I lived with the ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over my head, as a little bit of me died inside every day. Yet, while I still live, many of my friends and acquaintances do not. Their lives having been jabbed out of existence by the needle of the state.
The faces of those men are forever seared into my memory. The face of Hernando, Walter, Willie, and many others. Including those who took their own lives, like Frankie Red and Wild Bill.
Finally, in 2003, a man mustered the courage to act on his convictions and refused to stand for it any longer. That man was former governor, George H. Ryan. Mr. Ryan had the God-given courage to look into face of that evil and call it what it was, what we all knew it to be long before that day — an unfair, unjust, racist, and discriminatory system of legalized murder.
One of the saddest legacies of Illinois’ former death penalty system is that even after its abolishment, it continues to claim victims. Commutation and abolishment sometimes feel like hollow victories to me. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am grateful for both occurrences, but too many fail to realize that the war has not been won; the terrain has merely changed.
The system that resulted in innocent persons being silenced forever or condemned to a life of imprisonment did not begin with the death penalty and did not end with its demise. In other words, the commutation of a sentence and the abolishment of the death penalty does not address the ills and the vestiges of a death penalty system that continues to destroy the lives of its remaining living victims.
There has never been a review of each death penalty case – living or dead – and until such a reckoning is had, we all will remain victims of the deadly and dishonorable former Illinois Death Penalty System.
Contact Info:
Tony Enis N82931
P.O. Box 1000
Menard, Illinois 62259
Institutional Email: Connectnetwork.com
Facebook: FreeTonyEnis
Website: www.freetonyenis.com
Additional email: freetonyenis@yahoo.com
You may also view Tony's Pen Pal Profile at https://www.penpals.buzz/inmate/tony-enis
