Governor Rod Blagojevich exercised his amendatory veto power on July 29, 2003, which delayed implementation of landmark legislation that promises to improve the fairness and accuracy of the Illinois capital punishment system, which wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death 17 men who were subsequently exonerated and released. The amendatory veto deleted a section of a landmark death penalty reform bill — SB 472 — that would have provided for "decertification" of police officers found by the Illinois Police Training and Standards Board to have committed perjury. The governor said in a letter to legislators that he favored all other provisions of the package.
Existing law requires police officers to be certified by the Board. Certification is granted and maintained as long as an officer has no felony convictions. SB 472 would have created a procedure for decertification if a committee of the board determined that an officer, "while under oath, knowingly and willfully made false statements as to a material fact during a homicide proceeding." This would have required a lower threshold for decertification than for obtaining a perjury conviction in court.
The provision in effect would have provided for a quasi-trial before an administrative law judge. For decertification to occur, the Board would have to approve the administrative judge's perjury finding by a two-thirds majority. In vetoing the provision, Blagojevich said that the decertification approach to punishing alleged perjury differs from the manner in which perjury is currently addressed in the criminal justice system. Currently, on the rare occasions that a police officer is indicted for perjury, he or she is prosecuted, and the standard for conviction is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. For an officer to be decertified under the provision Blagojevich vetoed, the standard would be "clear and convincing evidence," which is lower.
"Police officers shouldn't be treated different from anyone else," Blagojevich said in a message to the General Assembly. "If a police officer is believed to have committed perjury, charge them with perjury and prosecute them like everyone else. Frankly, treating the police worse than everyone else is offensive."
Blagojevich also opined that, under the vetoed procedure, the fact that an officer had been decertified for committing perjury could be cited by the defendant in the case in which the perjury was committed in support of the defendant's efforts to overturn his or her conviction. In addition, said the governor, defense attorneys in other criminal cases involving the decertified officer would be able to use the civil finding in an effort to overturn or avoid their clients' convictions.
A defendant found guilty by a jury, Blagojevich continued, should not be in a position to overturn his or her conviction based on a finding of perjury by an administrative body determined under a standard of proof below reasonable doubt.
Blagojevich also noted that the provision would have imposed an unfunded mandate on the Police Training and Standards Board to implement the process. The Board, which opposed the provision, estimated that the process would cost at least $2 million a year.
When the General Assembly reconvened for its veto session in November, it could have either accepted the governor's amendatory veto or overridden it. An override was attractive to supporters of the measure, including Senate Majority Leader Emil Jones and the chief sponsor, Senator John Cullerton, because it was approved overwhelmingly by both houses. SB 472 was approved by the Senate by a vote of 56 to 3 on May 29 2003, six days after the House approved it unanimously.
As a result of negotiations with the governor, legislative leaders agreed to make changes to the mechanism for investigating and prosecuting complaints of police perjury, including protecting officers from suspension without pay until a complaint is deemed credible, and moving the proceedings from the Police Training Standards Board to the Labor Relations Board, among others.
To implement the deal, the legislature proceeded with an override of the
governor’s amendatory veto on November 19, 2003, and passed a separate “trailer
bill”, HB 576, making the agreed changes to the police perjury provision.
