Quinn’s Last-minute Clemency Decisions Draw More Critics
From the Associated Press
Pat Quinn’s clemency decisions in his final moments as Illinois governor are drawing more criticism, with a prosecutor saying it was “mind-numbing” for Quinn to cut in half the prison term of a woman who killed her husband by dousing him with gasoline and setting him ablaze as he slept.
Tom Gibbons, the top prosecutor in southwestern Illinois’ Madison County, said Wednesday that Quinn’s decision to reduce Tammy Englerth’s 40-year sentence came without notice to or consultation with his office or the family of Christopher Englerth, who died in 2005 after the fire in the couple’s Highland duplex.
That complaint was echoed earlier this week by Gibbons’ Cook County counterpart after Quinn commuted the sentences of two inmates serving decades-long prison terms for separate Chicago-area killings and a man who wounded several Chicago police officers during a shoot-out.
Quinn offered no explanation Monday of why he made 42-year-old Tammy Englerth, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as part of a plea deal, eligible for parole in 2025 rather than in 2045.
An April clemency petition on Englerth’s behalf by Chicago attorney Rachel White-Domain insisted Christopher Englerth for years had “abused her in every way imaginable,” that she “lived in constant terror” and killed her husband to protect her three children. Christopher Englerth died in a hospital six days after being set on fire.
White-Domain, of the Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women, described Tammy Englerth as intensely remorseful, a model prisoner and someone undeserving of “effectively a life sentence,” given that Englerth would have been 71 at her time of original release should Quinn not intervene.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Associated Press
Pat Quinn’s clemency decisions in his final moments as Illinois governor are drawing more criticism, with a prosecutor saying it was “mind-numbing” for Quinn to cut in half the prison term of a woman who killed her husband by dousing him with gasoline and setting him ablaze as he slept.
Tom Gibbons, the top prosecutor in southwestern Illinois’ Madison County, said Wednesday that Quinn’s decision to reduce Tammy Englerth’s 40-year sentence came without notice to or consultation with his office or the family of Christopher Englerth, who died in 2005 after the fire in the couple’s Highland duplex.
That complaint was echoed earlier this week by Gibbons’ Cook County counterpart after Quinn commuted the sentences of two inmates serving decades-long prison terms for separate Chicago-area killings and a man who wounded several Chicago police officers during a shoot-out.
Quinn offered no explanation Monday of why he made 42-year-old Tammy Englerth, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder as part of a plea deal, eligible for parole in 2025 rather than in 2045.
An April clemency petition on Englerth’s behalf by Chicago attorney Rachel White-Domain insisted Christopher Englerth for years had “abused her in every way imaginable,” that she “lived in constant terror” and killed her husband to protect her three children. Christopher Englerth died in a hospital six days after being set on fire.
White-Domain, of the Illinois Clemency Project for Battered Women, described Tammy Englerth as intensely remorseful, a model prisoner and someone undeserving of “effectively a life sentence,” given that Englerth would have been 71 at her time of original release should Quinn not intervene.
Read more in our daily News Update...