IL Officially Shuts Down Death Row

After years of stories of men sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit and families of murder victims angrily demanding their loved ones' killers pay with their own lives, the end of the death penalty in Illinois came quietly Friday when the bill banning executions took effect.

That bill was signed with much fanfare in March by Gov. Pat Quinn, who subsequently commuted the sentences of the 15 men on death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Fourteen of those prisoners have been placed in maximum security prisons around the state, while one was placed in a medium-high security prison with a mental health facility.