That is why we have both the appellate and commutation procedures. Thirty-three percent of all death penalty cases are overturned on appeal. As we have seen, very few are due to factual innocence claims. An innocent person sentenced to death is a grave miscarriage of justice. And Illinois and all jurisdictions are constantly working to lessen that possibility.
All social institutions commit errors.
Criminal justice is not different. However, when it comes to the death penalty, virtually all agree that the death penalty has the most extraordinary due process protections of all criminal cases. What that means is that it is far more likely for an innocent sentenced to prison to die there than it is for an innocent sentenced to death to be executed. Both are irreversible errors, but one is much more likely than the other. And when we find errors within any social institution, we constantly try to correct and improve them.