SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP)—Seymour Simon says he will leave the Illinois Supreme Court with one major regret: that the long legal debate over the death penalty in Illinois remains unresolved.

Through his seven-year tenure on the high court, Simon’s persistent dissents challenging the Illinois death-sentence statute have cemented his reputation as the odd man out on the seven-member court.

Now, less than a month before Simon returns to private law practice, the debate has been renewed by the case of Charles Walker, the condemned killer whom the high court allowed to waive further appeals, clearing the way for a May 10 execution.

Simon, as usual, dissented.

“It bothers me professionally and it bothers me personally,” said the 72-year-old Chicagoan, who will leave the court Feb. 15. “I’m a member of the society that imposes the death penalty.

“I don’t want it imposed on a fluke because Charles Walker says he doesn’t want any further appeals, and wake up two months later to find that a federal court has declared the death-penalty statute unconstitutional.”

Simon joined the high court in 1980, a year after a 4-3 majority upheld a clause in the Illinois capital punishment statute that allows prosecutors to decide whether to seek a death sentence in certain cases.

His election shifted the balance in favor of justices who believe the provision is unconstitutional. But the three justices who were in the minority in 1979 have refused to reopen the question, citing a legal principle that court precedents shouldn’t be changed because new judges come on the scene.

Since then, Simon has dissented from each Illinois Supreme Court decision upholding a death sentence, often with rhetorical flourishes aimed at his fellow justices. His dissent from the Walker decision earlier this month is classic Simon.

“Today the court allows the state to become an executioner on demand,” he wrote. “I believe, however, that a prisoner’s desire to die should never be elevated above society’s interest in ensuring that no Illinois citizen be improperly executed.”

Simon has sided with the court’s majority far more often than he has dissented. He wrote the court’s unanimous 1984 opinion upholding a handgun ban in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove, and the 1986 ruling blocking a referendum on the non-partisan election of Chicago’s mayor.

In 1983, Simon broke ranks with his fellow Democrats on the high court, joining with three Republican justices to deny Adlai Stevenson a recount of his razor-thin 1982 election loss to Gov. James R. Thompson.

But it is his dissents that have set Simon apart.

The most extraordinary episode began last August, when the high court refused to grant a law license to Edward Loss, a reformed petty thief and drug addict whose case had gained wide attention.

Simon dissented, calling the decision “Kafkaesque” and, in language that was quite caustic even for Simon, accused the court’s majority of misusing its authority.

Four of Simon’s colleagues responded a month later with an unusual special opinion that said Simon “used innuendos, general accusations and emotionally charged language … which were seized upon to create a ‘cause celebre.'”

Simon seems to shrug off those comments, saying his colleagues’ ire is “a natural thing.”

“When you’re on the Supreme Court, you’re in the big leagues,” he said. “When someone tells you you’re wrong, you can’t stand back and pout and not be ready to get into the next game.”

He dismissed speculation that the Loss case created an irreparable rift between himself and his colleagues and led to his resignation.

“I was thinking about the possibility of doing what I did before the Loss case was ever filed,” he said. “I don’t know how the Loss case diminished my effectiveness. I’ve written a lot of opinions and lot of dissents since.”