US: The outgoing governor of Illinois has pardoned four death row inmates, a day before he was expected to announce decisions on another 142 clemency applications from condemned prisoners throughout the state.
Yesterday's pardons bring to 17 the number of death row inmates exonerated since the Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977, four more than have been put to death, according to experts.
In his announcement, Governor George Ryan said he believed the four men were innocent and that a "manifest injustice" had occurred when they were prosecuted and sentenced to die.
"Today, I shall be a friend to Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, Aaron Patterson and Leroy Orange. Today I am pardoning them of the crimes for which they were wrongfully prosecuted and sentenced to die," Mr Ryan said at Chicago's DePaul University College of Law.
All of the cases were marred by allegations of police brutality and coercion, in some cases compounded by a lack of physical evidence linking the defendant to the crime.
Mr Ryan, a Republican who will leave office on Monday, has been at the forefront of death penalty reform in the United States. - (AFP)