Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign, IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (voice) 217-244-1478 (fax) fboyle at law.uiuc.edu (personal comments only)
-----Original Message----- From: EMAF at STLtoday.com [mailto:e...@stltoday.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2006 8:00 AM To: Boyle, Francis Subject: STLtoday article: George Ryan is still a hero to death penalty foes from fboyle at law.uiuc.edu This STLtoday.com article -- "George Ryan is still a hero to death penalty foes"-- has been sent to you by: "fboyle at law.uiuc.edu" Ryan Verdict George Ryan is still a hero to death penalty foes By Kevin McDermott</A> POST-DISPATCH SPRINGFIELD BUREAU Below is the link to the story. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/metroeast/story/41790E A22ADC9790862571550018E593?OpenDocument Here is the story. [<B>]SPRINGFIELD, ILL.[</B>] During former Gov. George Ryan's corruption trial, the court denied defense attempts to bring up his anti-death-penalty crusade, saying the capital punishment issue was irrelevant to the corruption charges. Now that the trial is over, anti-death-penalty activists around the nation are comforting themselves with the same notion: That Ryan's conviction for selling out Illinois government to friends and cronies is irrelevant to his stature in the capital punishment debate. "He is seen as the governor who shined public light on the problem with the state's death penalty system. No one had done that before in the comprehensive manner in which he did it," said David Elliot of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington. As for Ryan's conviction on Monday, Elliot said: "He did all kinds of things in office that had nothing to do with the death penalty. It's apples and oranges." Ryan, a Republican and one-time death penalty supporter, shifted positions during his term as governor, after revelations that 13 men had been wrongly condemned to die in Illinois. Ryan imposed a freeze on all executions in the state and, on his way out of office in 2003, cleared Illinois' death row, pardoning four inmates and commuting to life in prison the death sentences of 163 others. The move was widely viewed as the single biggest blow to American capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court's temporary halt of all U.S. executions in the 1970s. While Ryan was hailed by activists around the world, closer to home his move was viewed with far less adoration. The ever-widening license-for-bribes scandal during his one term as governor drove his approval ratings so low that he opted not to run for second term. [<B>]"He's being persecuted"[</B>] People on both sides of the capital punishment debate suggest that the corruption charges and Ryan's death penalty activism were linked - though the theories go in two very different directions. "In my opinion, he's being persecuted for his death penalty work by the pro-death-penalty (U.S.) Justice Department," said Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, who has repeatedly nominated Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize for his death penalty stance. "He would not have been indicted if not for his death penalty work." Boyle's most startling claim involves what is generally assumed to be a numeric coincidence in the case: Ryan took 167 condemned inmates off death row in January 2003. Eleven months later, the U.S. attorney's office handed down its corruption indictment against Ryan, alleging he and family members received $167,000 in cash and benefits in exchange for state contracts. "They alleged $167,000 - no more, no less," said Boyle, noting the figure precisely invokes the number 167, which is how many people Ryan removed from death row. "That was no coincidence. That was clearly designed to send a message (from prosecutors) to Ryan and the abolition movement: 'This is the price you pay'" for anti-death-penalty activism. That theory, for which Boyle offers no evidence, didn't make it into the trial. Like all issues related to the death penalty, it was barred from testimony by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer as irrelevant to the corruption charges. Pro-death-penalty advocates like state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, a former Madison County state's attorney, allege it was Ryan who attempted to link the capital punishment debate with the corruption charges - by climbing on board a high-minded crusade as federal investigators closed in. "He was going to build himself up as a paragon of virtue . . . to make himself unassailable in a court of law" by emptying death row and softening his gruff image with the public, said Haine. "For anybody in the anti-death-penalty movement to suggest that (the corruption trial) is a payback is offensive in the extreme." _____________________________________________________________________ If you enjoy reading about interesting news, you might like the 3 O'Clock Stir from STLtoday.com. Sign up and you'll receive an email with unique stories of the day, every Monday-Friday, at no charge. Sign up at http://newsletters.stltoday.com _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ All content copyright (c) 2004, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, L.L.C. All rights reserved. 900 N. Tucker Blvd, St. Louis MO 63101 You received this email via STLtoday.com's Email a Friend feature. If you want to block any future stories from being sent to you via STLtoday.com's Email a Friend feature, please send an email to: EMAF_Blocklist at stltoday.com
