Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 08:11:06 -0600 From: Rick Halperin Reply-To: "Abolish (Capital Punishment)" Subject: death penalty news--ILLINOIS Wed., 11-19-97-- ILLINOIS: 2 convicted killers were executed by lethal injection about 1 hour apart early Wed. morning in the 2nd double execution in recent years in Illinois. Officials at Stateville Correctional Center near Joliet said Walter Stewart, 42, died at 12:30 am and Durlyn Eddmonds, 45, was pronounced dead at 1:35 am (central time). Both executions were completed without incident. The body of Stewart was removed from the execution chamber and the device which delivers the lethal chemicals was reset before Addmonds was wheeled into the room and strapped to the table. Stewart's last words were "I love Jesus Christ my God," but Eddmonds went to his death without saying anything. Hours earlier Illinois governor Jim Edgar had denied appeals for clemency from both men; other last ditch appeals to state and federal courts also failed. Stewart was sentenced to death for killing 2 men during a jewelry store robbery in suburban Chicago in 1980; Eddmonds was found guilty of killing a 9-year-old boy whom he smothered during a sexual assault in Chicago in 1977. Edgar stated that "both cases have undergone full, fair reviews by our legal system. It is time for the penalties to be carried out." The Chicago Council of Lawyers has urged the state to put a moratorium on all executions and pleaded with Edgar to spare Stewart and Eddmonds. The group said the state's legal system is suspect because 9 death row inmates have been found to be innocent in recent years. The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial, also urged Edgar to block Stewart's execution, citing the petition from the legal group and the fact that he pleaded guilty without his lawyer asking that he be spared the death penalty in return--a standard legal practice. Eddmonds had been repeatedly diagnosed a schizophrenic and manic-depressive, his lawyer said. Stewart and Eddmonds become the 9th and 10th condemned men to be put to death in Illinois since that state resumed capital punishment in 1990, and they are the 66th and 67th prisoners to be executed this year in the USA. They are also the 424th and 425th condemned prisoners to be executed in the USA since America resumed capital punishment on Jan. 17, 1977. Rick Halperin AI-Texas