Memorandum

To: OTSE Moratorium Committee

CC: Sarah Craft, Equal Justice
From: Molly Wieser, AFSC
Date: 10/14/2008
Re: Structure of Ohio’s proposed Death Penalty Study Commission

Below are summaries of structures of Death Penalty study committees in OH, IL, and NJ.
The committees in Ohio and NJ are proposed, not yet created.

The Ohio Commission is heavily populated by elected officials, compared to the Illinois
Commission.

Composition of IL Commission on Death Penalty....................................................................2

NJ proposed committee composition:........................................................................................5

Summary of Ohio’s HB 160 Proposed Commission Structure

Group to appoint the Commission:

1. Speaker of House
2. Minority Leader of House
3. President of Senate
4. Minority Leader of Senate
5. Rep. appointed by Speaker
6. Rep. appointed by (2)
7. Sen. Appointed by President
8. Sen. Appointed by (4)
9. Governor

The Commission1:
1
The appointed members of the Commission who are members of the House of Representatives or Senate shall
be different individuals than the House or Senate members who make the appointments to the Commission. Not
more than nine appointed members of the Commission shall be members of the same political party.

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1. Rep. of Governor
2. Rep. of Attorney General
3. Member of House (R)
4. Member of House (D)
5. Member of Senate (R)
6. Member of Senate (D)
7. Common Pleas Judge
8. Common Pleas Judge
9. Court of Appeals Judge
10. Court of Appeals Judge
11. Prosecutor
12. Prosecutor
13. Criminal Defense Attorney qualified as lead counsel in capital cases
14. Criminal Defense Attorney qualified as lead counsel in capital cases
15. Representative of an organization that advocates for the rights of victims of crime
16. Representative of an organization that advocates for crime victims' families for
reconciliation,
17. Psychiatrist
18. Psychologist
19. Member of the general public
20. Member of the general public

Composition of IL Commission on Death Penalty

1. Former federal judge, now private attorney

2. Retired Senator Paul Simon, now professor

3. Former U.S. Attorney, now private attorney

4. Former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Governor for Criminal Justice and Public Safety

5. Retired attorney, Former prosecutor and defender and private practitioner

6. The public defender of Cook County IL (supervising 500 atty’s)

7. State Appellate Defender of Ill

8. private attorney, both DP defense and police brutality defense

9. Retired prosecutor, and experienced defense attorney

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10. private attorney, former prosecutor and public safety advisor

11. High profile Latino business owner, philanthropist

12. private attorney and author, former US Attorney (Turow)

13. Prosecutor for Lake County, Ill

14. Private attorney, former criminal defense, former prosecutor

15. private attorney, former director of CIA and FBI, former federal appellate and trial
judge

Chairman, Judge Frank McGarr

Now in private practice with a focus on mediation and arbitration, Judge McGarr
served as a federal prosecutor and as the First Assistant Illinois Attorney General
before spending 18
distinguished years on the federal bench. He served as Chief Judge of the Federal
District Court for the Northern District of Illinois between 1981 and 1986.

Co-Chair, Senator Paul Simon

Senator Simon has served the people of Illinois with distinction, both as a
member of the Illinois General Assembly and the United States Congress. Since
he retired from the United States Senate in 1997, Senator Simon has been a
professor at Southern Illinois University and Director of its Public Policy Institute.

Co-Chair, Thomas P. Sullivan

An accomplished litigator, Mr. Sullivan served as United States Attorney for the
Northern
District of Illinois from 1977 to 1981. Currently in private practice at Jenner &
Block, he is
often called upon lend his legal expertise, judgment and leadership on public
interest committees.

Former Deputy Governor Matthew R. Bettenhausen, Member and

Executive Director
Mr. Bettenhausen served as the Deputy Governor for Criminal Justice and Public
Safety. A former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of
Illinois, he most recently served as the Associate Chief of the Criminal Division.
State agencies reporting to him as Deputy Governor included the Illinois State
Police, the Illinois Department of Corrections, the Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, and the Law
Enforcement Training Board, among others.

Kathryn Dobrinic, Member

Ms. Dobrinic served for 12 years as the elected State’s Attorney for Montgomery
County.
Having practiced law in central Illinois for more than 20 years, Ms. Dobrinic
served as the public defender in Christian County and has also worked in private

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practice.

Rita Fry, Member

An award winning attorney, Ms. Fry is the Public Defender of Cook County, Illinois.
The
Office of the Cook County Public Defender is the second largest public defender’s
office in the nation, with more than 500 attorneys providing indigent defense
service in the largest county in the State.

Theodore Gottfried, Member

Mr. Gottfried is the State Appellate Defender of the State of Illinois, and has held
the office since 1972. The office of the State Appellate Defender is responsible for
providing appellate level and post-conviction indigent legal services throughout
the State. With more than 140 attorneys state-wide, Mr. Gottfried’s office also
provides advice and counsel to capital defense attorneys.

Donald Hubert, Member

Mr. Hubert is a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the
American College of Trial Lawyers. A well-respected litigator, he has represented
defendants in murder cases as well as police officer defendants in civil police
brutality cases. He serves by appointment of the Illinois Supreme Court as
Chairman of the Court’s Committee on Professional Responsibility and is a former
president of the Chicago Bar Association. He has devoted significant efforts to
various charitable efforts, including Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Hales
Franciscan High School.

William J. Martin, Member

During his tenure as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorneys office, Mr.
Martin is well-known as the man who prosecuted Richard Speck. He also has
extensive experience as a criminal defense lawyer, and is well-acquainted with
the capital punishment system. His subspecialty is legal ethics, and he has
defended hundreds of lawyers in Illinois disciplinary proceedings.

Thomas Needham, Member

Now in private practice with the firm of Baird & Needham, Mr. Needham most
recently served as the Chief of Staff for Chicago Police Superintendent Terry
Hillard. Before joining the Superintendent’s office, Mr. Needham was a policy
advisor to Mayor Daley on public safety issues and a veteran Cook County
prosecutor.

Roberto Ramirez, Member

Mr. Ramirez is founder and president of Tidy International, a janitorial and
custodial company which is one of the fastest growing Hispanic owned companies
in the United States. He immigrated to the United States as a young boy with his
widowed mother and eight siblings. In 1996, he founded the Jesús Guadalupe
Foundation in honor of his parents, as a means to financially assist Latino
students in their pursuit of higher education.

Scott Turow, Member

A partner with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, Mr.Turow is probably better
known across the world as a best-selling author of legal novels. Mr. Turow served
as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois for

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several years before entering private practice.

Mike Waller, Member

The elected State’s Attorney of Lake County, Illinois, Mr. Waller is a veteran trial
lawyer and prosecutor. The Lake County State’s Attorneys office is the third
largest prosecutor’s office in the State.

Andrea Zopp, Member

A successful corporate lawyer, Ms. Zopp has also been a criminal defense lawyer,
and formerly served as First Assistant State’s Attorney in Cook County. She is also
a former Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois.

Judge William H. Webster, Special Advisor to the Commission

A senior partner with the Washington law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and
McCloy, Judge Webster has served as the director of the CIA and FBI. He has also
served as a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit; a U.S.
District Court Judge and as a federal prosecutor in Missouri

NJ proposed committee composition:

• five members appointed by the Governor, at least one of whom shall be appointed
from each of the following groups:
o Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and the
o New Jersey Crime Victims' Law Center;
• At least two of whom shall be appointed from the religious/ethical community in
New Jersey
• two members appointed by the President of the Senate, one of whom shall be a
Republican, and one of whom shall be a Democrat
• two members appointed by the Speaker of the General Assembly, one of whom shall
be a Republican, and one of whom shall be a Democrat
• the Public Defender or his designee;
• the Attorney General or his designee;
• the President of the New Jersey State Bar Association or his designee; and
• a representative of the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey.