QUOTE: Dugan’s conviction was part of a tangled legal saga
that saw two other men — Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez — get convicted
and sentenced to death before ultimately being exonerated. The case was one of
the many that led then-Gov. George Ryan to put a moratorium on the death
penalty in 2000.
Former death row inmate Rolando
Cruz also favors keeping the death penalty.
“It’s sad that there’s
a death penalty in this society that we exist in right now; unfortunately, we
are forced to have that as a last means tool to attempt to decrease the
outrageously increasing numbers of murders in the United States,”
Cruz said. “The problem we’re having is the implementation.”
Cruz, 47, was twice convicted and
sentenced to death for the 1983 rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine
Nicarico. He was acquitted and later pardoned. Years earlier, though, Brian
Dugan, who was already in jail for raping and killing another girl and a woman,
admitted to the crime. Dugan plead guilty to the crime in 2009.
He said he and other former death
row inmates should be allowed one-on-one audiences with Gov. Quinn to discuss
the issue.
“I think the state government in
Illinois owes me that opportunity and owes all of us former death row inmates.
The government and high courts and joint committees owe us the opportuntity to
speak in front of those who made those laws.”
Cruz, who is rearing three young
children in Wisconsin where he is completing a degree in psychology, working
and playing in a pool league, said he and other former death row inmates have
been used as pawns of anti-death penalty groups. He said he and other inmates
have received small stipends of about $100 per appearance.
But cases can be made for the
punishments, he said, citing last week’s shooting in Tucson as an example.
AUTHOR: Rolando Cruz - a Hispanic man from Aurora, Illinois named Rolando Cruz
and a co-defendant were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the 1983
kidnapping, rape, deviant sexual assault and murder of 10-year old Jeanine
Nicarico in DuPage County Circuit Court despite the fact that the police had no
physical evidence linking them to the crime. Cruz was pardoned after more than
10 years in custody. Cruz, who is rearing three young children in Wisconsin
where he is completing a degree in psychology, working and playing in a pool
league, said he and other former death row inmates have been used as pawns of
anti-death penalty groups. He said he and other inmates have received small
stipends of about $100 per appearance.
Comment: Just like Charles Fain and Aleksandr Biryukov, Rolando Cruz still supports the death penalty and wants the system
fixed. I am grateful that he does not want to work for the Abolitionists
anymore. Thanks
to the abolitionists in Illinois, the homicide rate had more than doubled after the death penalty was abolished.
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