Around 140 death row inmates are to learn today whether outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan will commute their death sentences to life in prison.
Yesterday he freed four inmates whom he said had been unjustly sentenced to die.
Saying he wanted to correct a "manifest injustice," Mr Ryan pardoned the four black defendants who had been tortured and beaten by police until they confessed to the crimes.
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"I have reviewed these cases and I believe these men are innocent," Mr Ryan sid.
Now he is prepared to possibly commute the sentences of all remaining 156 death row inmates, which would be an unparalleled act of clemency by a US governor.
Between them, the four inmates - Mr Madison Hobley, Mr Stanley Howard, Mr Aaron Patterson and Mr Leroy Orange - served 60 years behind bars for murders they confessed to after being tortured by a group of rogue Chicago detectives, who systematically brutalised suspects in order to extract confessions from them.
Three of the four are immediately eligible for release based on the governor's decision that they are innocent; Howard will remain incarcerated on another conviction which Ryan also described as "troubling."
"A dream come true - finally," Mr Hobley said as he embraced his mother and two sisters on leaving prison. The 42-year-old was convicted of starting a 1987 arson fire that killed seven people.
"It feels good," said Mr Orange (52), as he walked out of jail after 17 years behind bars for stabbing dead four people in 1985.
"Thankyou from all my heart and soul," he said in a message to Mr Ryan "and please do something for all the remaining guys that are on death row."
The pardons bring to 17 the number of death row inmates exonerated since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1977 - the largest number of any state except Florida.
AFP