Ryan expected to commute terms of all death row inmates
January 11, 2003
By MIKE RAMSEY
of Copley News Service
Gov. George Ryan pardoned four death row inmates Friday and is expected to announce today that he will commute the sentences of most or all the remaining condemned prisoners.
Broadcasts by NBC news and WGN-TV in Chicago reported on Friday that Ryan, who leaves office Monday, will issue a "blanket commutation" to the 156 remaining inmates who were sentenced to die. County prosecutors and most families of murder victims fiercely oppose such an unprecedented move to commute the death sentences to life in prison or time served.
A Ryan spokesman did not return telephone calls Friday night. During a speech earlier in the day at DePaul University College of Law, Ryan said families of victims and inmates alike were to receive overnight letters informing them of his decisions.
"After families have received those letters, I will make my decision public," Ryan said. He scheduled his announcement for 1 p.m. today, during a speech at Northwestern University's Chicago law campus.
On Friday, the Republican governor announced the four pardons before an appreciative - but carefully selected - audience of law students, death-penalty opponents and relatives of the men he was assisting. Ryan said he believes claims by Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, LeRoy Orange and Aaron Patterson that Chicago police tortured them into falsely confessing to murders, and had other evidence and testimony rigged against the four in the 1980s.
Fired Police Commander John Burge is the subject of a separate investigation into whether dozens of suspects were abused inside the south-side Area 2 headquarters under his command. Torture methods allegedly ranged from suffocation to electric shock.
"I believe these men are innocent," Ryan said during his speech Friday. "I still have faith in the system that eventually these men would have received justice in our courts. But I believe the old adage is true: Justice delayed is justice denied."
Hobley, Orange and Patterson were released from prison Friday. Ryan said Howard, whom he pardoned for a fatal 1984 shooting, will remain imprisoned for unrelated felony crimes the governor suggested may also be trumped-up.
Hobley was convicted of a 1987 apartment fire that killed seven people, including his wife and infant child; Orange for fatally stabbing four people in 1984; and Patterson for the 1986 stabbing deaths of a South Side couple.
The pardons brought a scathing rebuke from Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine, who held a news conference Friday night with assistant prosecutors to share details of the murder cases. Their collective message: The men Ryan cleared were guilty and are potentially dangerous.
"All of these would have been best left for consideration by the courts," Devine, a Democrat, said. "Instead, they were ripped away from the justice system by a man who's a pharmacist by training and a politician by trade."
Ryan halted executions nearly three years ago after the release of 13 death row inmates cast doubts on the integrity of capital punishment in Illinois. As he has prepared to leave office, the governor has been besieged by groups on both sides of the issue, seeking to influence his constitutional powers to commute sentences or pardon inmates.
The four pardons announced Friday brought the total number of death row inmates released to 17. Illinois has executed 12 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977.
The venue where Ryan has scheduled his appearance today, Northwestern University's law campus, has championed the cases of wrongly convicted death row inmates, as has DePaul. The locale for his second announcement bolstered beliefs that Ryan plans to protect the lives of most or all of the remaining prisoners.
"I am optimistic that's what's going to happen, but I'm not going to tell you that I know that's what's going to happen," Northwestern law professor and defense attorney Larry Marshall said after Ryan's appearance Friday. "I don't think anyone could listen to the governor's speech today and believe otherwise."
Other death penalty opponents had high praise for the governor.
"I think he knows the system is broken," said Jane T. Bohman, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty. "It's up to his judgment now, and we just encourage him to remember how deeply flawed the system is (and) the fact that the public safety will not be compromised (with commutations).
"People who are guilty will remain in prison," she said. "Those ... whose innocence is in question will be able to continue their appeal."
With less enthusiasm, Devine braced himself for a blanket commutation.
"I have no doubt at all that he'll commute everybody's sentence tomorrow. If he doesn't, I'll be shocked," the prosecutor said.
Ryan announced pardons for two others Friday: wrongly accused rapist Gary Dotson, the first Illinois inmate exonerated through DNA evidence; and Miguel Castillo, a Cuban immigrant who the governor said already was in jail when the murder for which he was convicted was committed.
It was the death row cases that grabbed the most attention, and the most emotional reactions, at Ryan's DePaul speech.
"I don't believe in miracles, but this is a miracle," Aaron Patterson's mother, Jo Ann, said. "They always said this wasn't going to happen, there was no way he was going to get a pardon based on actual innocence. But now, I believe in America."
Ryan said relatives of death row inmates are "a whole other class of victims that never get mentioned" in the controversy surrounding his decision. Survivors of murder victims previously have garnered most media attention, particularly when Ryan's parole board last year considered most of the death row cases and made confidential recommendations to him.
Devine challenged Ryan to make those reports public because he believes most prisoners were turned down for clemency. He also suggested Illinois should consider taking away a governor's broad clemency powers.
Ryan's elected successor to the executive office, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, had no comment about the governor's actions Friday, a spokeswoman said. A Chicago Police Department spokesman did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Bookmarks