CHICAGO�Anti-death row activists applauded Republican Gov. Bill Ryan�s plan to stop the execution of Death Row inmates, but warned that this first step must be a meaningful walk towards the abolishment of the death penalty.

Responding to a chorus of activists, politicians and religious leaders, the governor�s decision comes after 13 men were exonerated in the past 13 years�including some who came within days from being executed or served as much as 18 years in prison.

"There is no margin for error when it comes to putting a person to death," said Gov. Ryan at a news conference Jan. 31, where he called for the creation of a special panel to investigate the state�s severely tainted capital punishment system. The moratorium will remain, "until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty," he said.

"If the governor is not going to deal with the need for adequate legal council, then it is not doing Black and poor people any good at all," said Nation of Islam Prison Minister Abdullah Muhammad. "It will only delay the executions."

If the governor is sincere, he must "seek out those law enforcement officials who have conducted official misconduct," said the prison minister who made reference to death row inmate Nathson Fields, whose trial was overseen by Judge Thomas J. Maloney, who is now serving 15 years for taking a bribe in another death row case. "Those judges, attorneys and police officers who take bribes, torture people and commit other official acts of misconduct should be severely punished.

"Ultimately, the death penalty should be abolished all together," said Min. Abdullah, who stands with all those who are calling for an abolishment of the death penalty on behalf of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. "I don�t think that there can be true justice until God�s law replaces man�s law. And God�s law can only be established by the anointed of God and those working with him," he added.

Popular political radio talk show host Cliff Kelley said the governor�s call was "meaningless, because he�s still in favor of the death penalty." Mr. Kelley, who serves as vice chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois (ACLU), suggested the governor�s moratorium may be a smoke screen to take attention off the current licensing scandal that involves his former State�s Attorney�s Office. "If he said he was against it (death penalty), that would be meaningful."

Those who end up on death row have less to do with justice and more with economics and race, critics charge.

According to the American Bar Association and numerous scholars, "it is not the facts of the crime, but the quality of legal representation, that distinguishes cases in which the death penalty is imposed from similar cases in which it is not imposed. And the overwhelming majority of people on death row received substandard legal representation at trial, they say.

A recent survey conducted by the National Law Journal found that over half of the death row inmates in six southern states had been represented by lawyers who had never before handled a capital case. The study concluded that capital trials are "more like a random flip of a coin than a delicate balancing of the scales" because the defense lawyer is too often "ill trained, unprepared and grossly underpaid."

Bill Ryan of the Illinois Moratorium Project, State Representative Coy Pugh and other long-time anti-death penalty activists applauded the governor�s decision, including the ACLU of Illinois: "We also are gratified that the Governor has taken this courageous step at this time, so the death penalty issue is removed from the legislative arena in an election year," said Jay Miller, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.

If the death penalty is stopped in Illinois, it would be the first state to actually do so among states the reinstated the death penalty since 1977. Since the death penalty was reinstated, 12 people have been put to death and 13 exonerated.