This week, the state Senate will decide whether to do the same, sending the legislation to Gov. Pat Quinn's desk.  The Chicago Tribune reports:  

"The measure now goes to the Illinois Senate, where President John Cullerton is personally opposed to the death penalty, but the chamber's overall support for the legislation still may be a few votes short. But backers hoped the House's dramatic action would generate additional votes in the Senate."

Illinois was rattled in the late 1990s by revelations that the state had executed several innocent men and wrongfully kept several others on death row.  That information came to light largely due to the efforts of the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern University, led by professor David Protess.

After clearing the state's death row - commuting the sentences of 164 inmates - in 2003, Ryan said the death penalty in Illinois was "haunted by the demon of error."

The Chicago Sun-Times argued in support of a ban Sunday: "No system is perfect, no system is free of mistakes. And that, above all other reasons, is why a state-sanctioned death penalty is unwise.  The very idea of strapping someone to a gurney and injecting him with lethal drugs for a crime he did not commit should be sickening in a just society."

Law enforcement advocates in the state say the death penalty is the strongest deterrent they have in their arsenal, and asked lawmakers not to take it away.

The death penalty debate is one of America's most contentious, with the death penalty becoming less and less common nationwide.  Since the financial downturn, several states have factored budget concerns more heavily in their conversations about whether or not to maintain it.

ABC News reports: "In California, for example, a 2008 report showed that the $137 million annual cost of maintaining the criminal justice system would drop to just $11.5 million annually if the death sentence were abolished."

The Saturday shootings in Tucson have reinvigorated the death penalty question, with accused killer Jared Loughner potentially facing death on federal homicide and attempted assassination charges.