Emphatically, he went on: "I'm not calling for a moratorium on the death penalty. But I am calling for more time to make sure that we do not wrongfully put anyone to death in this state."

The response neatly appealed to those who are troubled that Illinois has sentenced nine innocent people to die since the death penalty was reinstated but who nevertheless count themselves among the strong majority of voters who continue to support capital punishment.

". . . We have to be very careful . . ." Yes. ". . . to make sure that we do not wrongfully put anyone to death. . . ." Very true.

But six years ago, when Burris had the opportunity to be very careful when faced with a flimsy death penalty case, he failed.

And it was not so much that he failed--everyone makes mistakes--but how he failed and how he explained it away that told me all I need to know about his leadership qualities.

On Valentine's Day 1992, Mary Brigid Kenney, the assistant attorney general whom Burris had assigned to fight the appeal of Death Row inmate Rolando Cruz, sent Burris a memo identifying numerous errors in the investigation and trial that had put Cruz on Death Row for the 1983 murder of 11-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County.

The memo concluded, "I cannot, in good conscience, allow my name to appear on a brief asking . . . to affirm this conviction." Rather than re-examining the case, Burris took Kenney off it.

She then resigned with a stinging letter to Burris. "I was being asked to help execute an innocent man," she told him. "Unfortunately, you have seen fit to ignore the evidence in this case."

The evidence he ignored included apparent "perjured testimony" and "fraudulent investigations by local officials," to use Burris' words from last Thursday.

Cruz's many advocates and every journalist who had looked at the case had been saying just that for years. Today, no thanks to Burris, charges filed against former prosecutors and investigators in DuPage County say the same thing, and Cruz is a free man.

But when reporters asked him about Mary Kenney's allegations, the state's then-top law enforcement official said:

Actually, no: "A prosecutor has the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate," according to the American Bar Association's rules of professional conduct. A prosecutor's proper interest "is not that (he) shall win a case, but that justice shall be done" the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 1935 opinion.

Kenney urged Burris to confess that he committed an error--find that the case is sufficiently flawed and that a new trial is called for. Such a move is far from "unheard of," as Burris told a TV reporter at the time, but well within the scope of an attorney general's power.

He certainly was entitled not to exercise that power and pursue the execution of Rolando Cruz based on the facts before his office--Illinois' current attorney general, Jim Ryan, did so with unapologetic gusto when he was the state's attorney of DuPage County. But he was not entitled to duck responsibility when confronted with a politically unappealing controversy.

Rather than risk appearing soft on crime by confessing error or alienating the Hispanic and progressive constituency supporting Cruz by speaking out on behalf of the prosecution, Burris took a pass.

So when he speaks today of the experience in office that makes him qualified to be our governor, I can't help but imagine him sitting at a desk in 1992 behind a little sign that reads: "Stopping the buck is not my job."