Illinois Gov. George Ryan halted all executions

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January 31 in History


In 2000, Illinois Gov. George Ryan halted all executions in his state after several death row inmates were found to be innocent of the crimes for which they were about to be put to death.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan Nominated For The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 30, 2007.

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan Nominated For The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

University of Illinois College of Law Professor Francis A. Boyle has nominated former Illinois Governor George Ryan for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize because of his courageous and heroic opposition to the death penalty system in America.

Despite tremendous opposition and criticism, Ryan single-handedly started what he calls a "rational discussion" on capital punishment in 2000 when he declared the Illinois death penalty moratorium.

To this day, despite paying a heavy personal price for his courage, integrity, and principles, Ryan remains committed to the principle of seeking justice for the poor and oppressed. Ryan now takes his message globally, recently speaking before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Switzerland, continuing to initiate dialogue against the barbaric use of capital punishment around the world.

Directly because of Ryan's imposed 2000 moratorium, a tidal wave of change has gained momentum in the United States. Death sentences are at a 30-year low, while the number of executions has dropped to a 10-year-low. And for the first time in two decades, more Americans now support life sentences over death as the proper punishment for capital crimes.

New Jersey's governor signed into law a one-year moratorium on executions due to public demand, and Florida's Governor Bush suspended all executions until methods of execution can be examined in that state.

California now has an imposed moratorium, and Ohio's new governor has stated moral questions concerning the use of capital punishment.

The American Bar Association has also now declared that there should be a blanket moratorium on all executions in the United States because of widespread problems with the quality of defense given to poor and indigent capital defendants.

As Governor Ryan exposed to the country in 2000, the burden of capital punishment consistently falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the forgotten underpriviledged members of society, and is often used as a racist institution against people of color.

The United States’ attitude towards capital punishment is undeniably changing, and as a direct result of Ryan’s historical acts as former Governor of Illinois. Ryan exposed capital punishment to be a distorted means of justice rife with flaws and defects, and he began the dialogue that will one day abolish capital punishment in America.

Professor Francis A. Boyle has stated that, "George Ryan is the beginning of the end of the death penalty in America," and it is for this reason that he richly deserves to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Joining him on the nomination papers were Chicago Attorneys Karen Conti, Greg Adamski and Jerome Boyle.

A Talk With Governor George Ryan

by BRUCE SHAPIRO
[from the January 8, 2001 issue]

If you sent to central casting for a Midwestern conservative, they'd send back Governor George Ryan of Illinois. With his white hair, plain business suit and heartland directness, Ryan is nobody's image of a crusading criminal-justice reformer. Not even his own. "I mean, I am a Republican pharmacist from Kankakee. All of a sudden I've got gays and lesbians by my side. African-Americans. Senators from Italy, groups from around the world. It's a little surprising."

A year ago in January, Ryan took a step unprecedented in the history of American capital punishment: He issued an open-ended moratorium on executions in Illinois. The immediate impetus: the exoneration of thirteen death-row inmates. Ryan's predecessor, Governor Jim Edgar, called those exonerations proof that "the system works." Ryan saw something different.

Ryan's moratorium received international attention, but his journey to that decision remained a largely private matter. He did not make the decision in a vacuum--legislators, lawyers and the media played a big role--but what led him to break so definitively with the bipartisan pro-execution consensus, and where his thinking has gone since, strikes at the core of the shifting politics of death.

Ryan, whose family owned several neighborhood drugstores in Kankakee for forty years, joined the Illinois legislature in the 1970s as a staunch law-and-order man. "I believed some crimes were so heinous that the only proper way of protecting society was execution. I saw a nation in the grip of increasing crime rates; and tough sentences, more jails, the death penalty--that was good government." In 1977, after the Supreme Court lifted its ban on execution, a bill to reinstate the death penalty came before the Statehouse in Springfield. When an anti-death-penalty legislator asked his colleagues to consider whether they personally would be willing to throw the switch, Ryan rose to his feet with "unequivocal words of support" for execution--words he now regrets. The truth, though, was that Ryan never thought about capital punishment much, before that vote or for more than twenty years afterward, except as an abstract idea of justice. "I supported the death penalty, I believed in the death penalty, I voted for the death penalty."

In September 1998, as Ryan was running for governor, an Illinois inmate named Anthony Porter, a man with an IQ of 51, was scheduled to die for a 1982 murder. Two days before Porter's execution date his lawyers won a temporary reprieve. Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess turned his investigative-reporting students loose on the case, and by February the evidence they obtained left the newly inaugurated Governor Ryan reeling: a videotaped confession by the real killer, freeing Porter after eighteen years. "I was caught completely off-guard. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but I was. That mentally retarded man came within two days of execution, and but for those students Anthony Porter would have been dead and buried. I felt jolted into re-examining everything I believed in." At first, a conflicted Ryan waffled on a full-fledged review of Illinois's capital apparatus, but ultimately he endorsed one concrete initiative: an $18 million capital-crimes-litigation fund to insure that defendants like Porter, as well as prosecutors, have access to investigative resources.

That experience also collided, within weeks, with a gubernatorial responsibility Ryan himself had helped enact: signing off on an execution. In the spring of 1999 the case of Andrew Kokoraleis landed on Ryan's desk. Kokoraleis had been found guilty of the rape, mutilation and murder of a 21-year-old woman. "This was a horrible crime, and I am the father of five daughters. But after the mistakes the system had made with Porter, I wasn't sure what to do. I agonized. I checked and double-checked and triple-checked the facts." In the end Ryan went through with it, and Kokoraleis was executed. But, says Ryan, "it was the most emotional experience I have ever been through in my life. It all came down to me--the one fellow who has to pull the switch. Quite frankly, that is too much to ask of one person."

Within three months, two more Illinois death-row inmates were exonerated: one by DNA evidence, the other when a jailhouse informant's testimony was discredited. The state judiciary began its own investigation, and the calls for a moratorium grew. Still, "I was resisting." But one day "the attorney general called seeking a new execution date for an inmate. In my heart at that moment, I couldn't go forward with it." Political cynics wondered if Ryan shifted his position to deflect attention from charges of corruption against his Secretary of State, but Ryan's description of his internal turmoil is compelling. "I knew I couldn't make myself live through what I'd experienced with Kokoraleis," he says. "I just couldn't do it again."

In the fall of 1999 the Chicago Tribune published an examination of every Illinois death-row case since 1977, revealing, among other things, that more than one-third of all 285 Illinois capital convictions over that period had been reversed because of "fundamental error." It was the final straw. Last January Ryan acted, unilaterally issuing his moratorium. He also assembled a commission, including such notable death-penalty opponents as Scott Turow and former Senator Paul Simon, to report on the roots of Illinois's false-conviction record. Ryan's moratorium--combined with relentless reporting by the Tribune--has had a seismic impact on Illinois politics. The commission's hearings have insured that death-row injustice is never far from the front page.

Ryan's position has changed over the past year. In May he told Northwestern students he doubted there would be another execution on his watch. Now, he is convinced that "moral certainty" in capital cases isn't possible. And he's broadened his focus: "My concern is not just with the death penalty as a singular issue; it's with the entire criminal justice system. If innocent people are sentenced to death--cases that get all kinds of scrutiny--what does that say about invisible, low-level cases, drug cases and so on?" Ryan has ordered the first wholesale reassessment of Illinois's criminal code in forty years; when he talks about sentencing disparities for drug offenses he sounds more like Jesse Jackson than Dennis Hastert.

Ryan argues, with great passion, that criminal-justice reformers need to extend their traditional concern for the poor to middle-class and suburban defendants--building a bridge to new constituencies. "I have seen people charged in drug cases where down comes the full force of the federal Treasury," he says. "Someone who is poor will get a free lawyer. But a truck driver, for instance, will have to mortgage his house and sell his rig to pay a lawyer. Then, when he is found not guilty, where can he go to get that house back, to get on with his life?"

These days Ryan often gets asked how he feels about fellow Republican George W. Bush's love affair with executions. He says he's had a "short conversation" with Bush about it and quickly adds that he has far more authority than Bush to halt individual executions.

Ryan's transformation is a journey still in progress. Most Americans will never have the occasion to feel revulsion for their own role in an execution. But that "jolt" he felt, and the moral anguish that followed, mirror a growing public unease. "A lot of people are like me, I think. The death penalty was a fact of life," he says. "But as people become more and more aware of the unfairness, they become less enthusiastic." Ryan, the heartland conservative, has tested his lifelong support for the death penalty against the evidence, and the institution has come up short: "I question the entire system and the people connected with it."

Governor Ryan's Commutation Announcement

Center on Wrongful Convictions
Governor Ryan's Commutation Announcement

Governor George H. Ryan's Address

Governor Ryan at Northwestern University School of Law, January 11, 2003 (Photo: Mary Hanlon)

Four years ago I was sworn in as the 39th Governor of Illinois. That was just four short years ago – that’s when I was a firm believer in the American System of Justice and the death penalty. I believed that the ultimate penalty for the taking of a life was administrated in a just and fair manner.

Today – 3 days before I end my term as Governor, I stand before you to explain my frustrations and deep concerns about both the administration and the penalty of death. It is fitting that we are gathered here today at Northwestern University with the students, teachers, lawyers and investigators who first shed light on the sorrowful condition of Illinois’ death penalty system. Professors Larry Marshall, Dave Protess have and their students along with investigators Paul Ciolino have gone above the call. They freed the falsely accused Ford Heights Four, they saved Anthony Porter’s life, they fought for Rolando Cruz and Alex Hernandez.

Before I go on, I need to take a moment to talk about Larry and Dave. Never have I met anyone with more passion or with a fiercer sense of Justice than these two men. They have a vision for what the Justice system can be, and they are an inspiration. It is also proper that we are together with dedicated people like Andrea Lyon who has labored on the front lines trying capital cases for many years and who is now devoting her passion to creating an innocence center at De Paul University. Andrea Lyon saved Madison Hobley’s life.

Together they spared the lives and secured the freedom of 17 men – men who were wrongfully convicted and rotting in the condemned units of our state prisons. Andrea, what you have achieved is of the highest calling. What you have achieved is of the highest calling – THANK YOU!

Yes, it is right that I am here with you, where, in a manner of speaking, my journey from staunch supporters of capital punishment to reformer all began. But I must tell you – since the beginning of our journey – my thoughts and feelings about the death penalty have changed many, many times. I realize that over the course of my reviews I had said that I would not do blanket commutation. I have also said it was an option that was there and I would consider all options.

During my time in public office I have always reserved my right to change my mind if I believed it to be in the best public interest, whether it be about taxes, abortions or the death penalty. But I must confess that the debate with myself has been the toughest concerning the death penalty. I suppose the reason the death penalty has been the toughest is because it is so final – the only public policy that determines who lives and who dies. In addition it is the only issue that attracts most of the legal minds across the country. I have received more advice on this issue than any other policy issue I have dealt with in my 35 years of public service. I have kept an open mind on both sides of the issues of commutation for life or death.

I have read, listened to and discussed the issue with the families of the victims as well as the families of the condemned. I know that any decision I make will not be accepted by one side or the other. I know that my decision will be just that - my decision – based on all the facts I could gather over the past 3 years. I may never be comfortable with my final decision, but I will know in my heart, that I did my very best to do the right thing.

Having said that I want to share a story with you: I grew up in Kankakee which even today is still a small Midwestern town, a place where people tend to know each other. Steve Small was a neighbor. He and his wife would look after our young children – when Lura Lynn and I were gone, which was not for the faint of heart since Lura Lynn and I had six children, 5 of them under the age of 3. He was a bright young man who helped run the family business. He and his wife had three children of their own. Lura Lynn was especially close to him and his family. We took comfort in knowing he was there for us and we for him.

One September midnight he received a call at his home. There had been a break-in at the nearby house he was renovating. But as he left his house, he was seized at gunpoint by kidnappers. His captors buried him alive in a shallow hole. He died before police could find him.
His killer led investigators to where Steve’s body was buried. The killer, Danny Edward was also from my hometown. He now sits on death row. I also know his family. I share this story with you so that you know I don’t come to this as a neophyte without having experienced a small bit of the bitter pill the survivors of murder must swallow.

My responsibilities and obligations are more than my neighbors and my family. I represent all the people of Illinois. The decision I make about our criminal justice system is felt not only here, but the world over.

The other day, I received a call from former South African President Nelson Mandela who reminded me that the United States sets the example for justice and fairness for the rest of the world. Today the United States is not in league with most of our major allies: Europe, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, most of South and Central America. These countries rejected the death penalty. We are partners in death with several third world countries. Even Russia has called a moratorium.

The death penalty has been abolished in 12 states. In none of these states has the homicide rate increased. In Illinois last year we had about 1000 murders, only 2 percent of that 1000 were sentenced to death. Where is the fairness and equality in that? The death penalty in Illinois is not imposed fairly or uniformly because of the absence of standards for the 102 Illinois State Attorneys, who must decide whether to request the death sentence. Should geography be a factor in determining who gets the death sentence? I don’t think so, but in Illinois it makes a difference. You are 5 times more likely to get a death sentence for first-degree murder in the rural area of Illinois than you are in Cook County. Where is the justice and fairness in that – where is the proportionality?

The Most Reverend Desmond Tutu wrote to me this week stating that “to take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice. He says justice allows for mercy, clemency and compassion. These virtues are not weakness.”

"In fact the most glaring weakness is that no matter how efficient and fair the death penalty may seem in theory, in actual practice it is primarily inflicted upon the weak, the poor, the ignorant and against racial minorities. " That was a quote from former California Governor Pat Brown. He wrote that in his book – Public Justice, Private Mercy he wrote that nearly 50 years ago – nothing has changed in nearly 50 years.

I never intended to be an activist on this issue. Soon after taking office, I watched in surprise and amazement as freed death row inmate Anthony Porter was released from jail. A free man, he ran into the arms of Northwestern University Professor Dave Protess who poured his heart and soul into proving Porter’s innocence with his journalism students.

He was 48 hours away from being wheeled into the execution chamber where the state would kill him.

It would all be so antiseptic that most of us would not have even paused, except that Anthony Porter was innocent of the double murder for which he had been condemned to die. After Mr. Porter’s case there was the report by Chicago Tribune reporters Steve Mills and Ken Armstrong documenting the systemic failures of our capital punishment system. Half of the nearly 300 capital cases in Illinois had been reversed for a new trial or resentencing. Nearly half!
33 of the death row inmates were represented at trial by an attorney who had later been disbarred or at some point suspended from practicing law.

Of the more than 160 death row inmates, 35 were African American defendants who had been convicted or condemned to die by all-white juries. More than two-thirds of the inmates on death row were African American. 46 inmates were convicted on the basis of testimony from jailhouse informants. I can recall looking at these cases and the information from the Mills/Armstrong series and asking my staff: How does that happen? How in God's name does that happen?
I have been asking this question for nearly 3 years and so far no one has answered.

Then over the next few months there were three more exonerated men, freed because their sentence hinged on a jailhouse informant or new DNA technology proved beyond a shadow of doubt their innocence.

We then had the dubious distinction of exonerating more men than we had executed. 13 men found innocent, 12 executed. As I reported yesterday, there is not a doubt in my mind that the number of innocent men freed from our Death Row stands at 17, with the pardons of Aaron Patterson, Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard and Leroy Orange.

That is what is outrageous and unconscionable. 17 exonerated death row inmates is nothing short of a catastrophic failure. But the 13, now 17 men, is just the beginning of our sad arithmetic in prosecuting murder cases. During the time we have had capital punishment in Illinois, there were at least 33 other people wrongly convicted on murder charges and exonerated. Since we reinstated the death penalty there are also 93 people – 93 – where our criminal justice system imposed the most severe sanction and later rescinded the sentence or even released them from custody because they were innocent.

How many more cases of wrongful conviction have to occur before we can all agree that the system is broken?
Throughout this process, I have heard many different points of view expressed. I have had the opportunity to review all of the cases involving the inmates on death row. I have conducted private group meetings, one in Springfield and one in Chicago, with the surviving family members of homicide victims. Everyone in the room who wanted to speak had the opportunity to do so. Some wanted to express their grief, others wanted to express their anger. I took it all in.

My commission and my staff had been reviewing each and every case for three years. But, I redoubled my effort to review each case personally in order to respond to the concerns of prosecutors and victims’ families. This individual review also naturally resulted in a collective examination of our entire death penalty system.

I also had a meeting with a group of people who are less often heard from, and who are not as popular with the media. The family members of death row inmates have a special challenge to face. I spent an afternoon with those family members at a church here in Chicago. At that meeting, I heard a different kind of pain expressed. Many of these families live with the twin pain of knowing not only that, in some cases, their family members may have been responsible for inflicting a terrible trauma on another family, but also the pain of knowing that, society has called for another killing. These parents, siblings and children are not to blame for the crime committed, yet these innocent stand to have their loved ones killed by the state. As Mr. Mandela told me, they are also branded and scarred for life because of the awful crime committed by their family member.

Others were even more tormented by the fact that their loved one was another victim, that their loved one was truly innocent of the crime for which they had been sentenced to die.
It was at this meeting that I looked into the face of Claude Lee, the father of Eric Lee, who was convicted of killing Kankakee police officer Anthony Samfay a few years ago. It was a traumatic moment, once again, for my hometown. A brave officer, part of that thin blue line that protects each of us, was struck down by wanton violence. If you will kill a police officer, you have absolutely no respect for the laws of man or God.

I’ve known the Lee family for many years. There does not appear to be much question that Eric was guilty of killing the officer. However, I can say now after our review, there is also not much question that Eric is seriously ill, with a history of treatment for mental illness going back a number of years.

The crime he committed was a terrible one – killing a police officer. Society demands that the highest penalty be paid. But I had to ask myself – could I send another man’s son to death under the deeply flawed system of capital punishment we have in Illinois? A troubled young man, with a history of mental illness? Could I rely on the system of justice we have in Illinois not to make another horrible mistake? Could I rely on a fair sentencing?

In the United States the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed.

To quote Governor Brown again – he said “society has both the right and the moral duty to protect itself against its enemies. This natural and prehistoric axiom has never successfully been refuted. If by ordered death, society is really protected and our homes and institutions guarded, then even the most extreme of all penalties can be justified.”

“Beyond its honor and incredibility, it has neither protected the innocent nor deterred the killers. Publicly sanctioned killing has cheapened human life and dignity without the redeeming grace which comes from justice delivered swiftly, evenly, humanely.”

At stake throughout the clemency process, was whether some, all or none of these inmates on death row would have their sentences commuted from death to life without the possibility parole. One of the things discussed with family members was life without parole was seen as a life filled with perks and benefits.

Some inmates on death row don't want a sentence of life without parole. Danny Edwards wrote me and told me not to do him any favors because he didn't want to face a prospect of a life in prison without parole. They will be confined in a cell that is about 6-feet-by-12 feet, usually double-bunked. Our prisons have no air conditioning, except at our supermax facility where inmates are kept in their cell 23 hours a day. In summer months, temperatures in these prisons exceed one hundred degrees. It is a stark and dreary existence. They can think about their crimes. Life without parole has even, at times, been described by prosecutors as a fate worse than death.

Yesterday, I mentioned a lawsuit in Livingston County where a judge ruled the state corrections department cannot force feed two corrections inmates who are on a hunger strike. The judge ruled that suicide by hunger strike was not an irrational action by the inmates, given what their future holds.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional and cruel and unusual punishment to execute the mentally retarded. It is now the law of the land. How many people have we already executed who were mentally retarded and are now dead and buried? Although we now know that they have been killed by the state unconstitutionally and illegally. Is that fair? Is that right?

This court decision was last spring. The General Assembly failed to pass any measure defining what constitutes mental retardation. We are a rudderless ship because they failed to act.

This is even after the Illinois Supreme Court also told lawmakers that it is their job and it must be done. I started with this issue because I was and still am concerned about innocence. But once I studied, once I pondered what had become of our justice system, I came to care above all about fairness. Fairness is fundamental to the American system of justice and our way of life.
The facts I have seen in reviewing each and every one of these cases raised questions not only about the innocence of people on death row, but about the fairness of the death penalty system as a whole.

If the system was making so many errors in determining whether someone was guilty in the first place, how fairly and accurately was it determining which guilty defendants deserved to live and which deserved to die? What effect was race having? What effect was poverty having?

And in almost every one of the exonerated 17, we not only have breakdowns in the system with police, prosecutors and judges, we have terrible cases of shabby defense lawyers. There is just no way to sugar coat it. There are defense attorneys that did not consult with their clients, did not investigate the case and were completely unqualified to handle complex death penalty cases. They often didn’t put much effort into fighting a death sentence. If your life is on the line, your lawyer ought to be fighting extra hard for you. As I have said before, there is more than enough blame to go around.

I had more questions. In Illinois, I have learned, we have 102 decision makers. Each of them are politically elected, each beholden to the demands of their community and, in some cases, to the media or especially vocal victims’ families. I ask you, in cases that have the attention of the media and the public, are decisions to seek the death penalty more likely to occur? What standards are these prosecutors using?

Some people have assailed my power to commute sentences, a power that literally hundreds of legal scholars from across the country have defended. But prosecutors in Illinois have the ultimate commutation power, a power that is exercised every day. They decide who will be subject to the death penalty, who will get a plea deal or even who may get a complete pass on prosecution. By what objective standards do they make these decisions? We do not know, they are not public. There were more than 1000 murders last year in Illinois. There is no doubt that all murders are wrong and cruel. Yet, less than 2 percent of those murder defendants will receive the death penalty. That means more than 98% of victims’ families do not get, and will not receive, whatever satisfaction can be derived from the execution of the murderer. Moreover, if you look at the cases, as I have done – both individually and collectively -- a killing with the same circumstances might get 40 years in one county and death in another county. I have also seen co-defendants who are equally guilty where one gets sentenced to a term of years, while another ends up on death row.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart has said that the imposition of the death penalty on defendants in this country is as freakish and arbitrary as who gets hit by a bolt of lightning.

In my case-by-case review, I found three cases that struck me as particularly unfair, troublesome and deserving of some form of commutation. In one of them, the murder victim’s family has publicly and privately urged me to act more aggressively than I will today. In the cases of Montell Johnson, Mario Flores and William Franklin, I am today commuting their sentences to a term of 40 years to fairly bring their sentences into line with their co-defendants and to reflect the other extraordinary circumstances of each of these cases.

For years the criminal justice system defended and upheld the imposition of the death penalty for the 17 exonerated inmates from Illinois Death row. Yet when the real killers are charged, prosecutors have often sought sentences of less than death. In the Ford Heights Four Case, Verneal Jimerson and Dennis Williams fought the death sentences imposed upon them for 18 years before they were exonerated. Later, Cook County prosecutors sought life in prison for two of the real killers and a sentence of 80 years for a third.

What made the murder for which the Ford Heights Four were sentenced to die less worthy of the death penalty twenty years later with a new set of defendants?

We have come very close to having our state Supreme Court rule out the death penalty statute - the one that I helped enact in 1977 – unconstitutional. Former State Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon wrote to me that it was only happenstance that our statute was not struck down by the state's high court. When he joined the bench in 1980, three other justices had already said Illinois' death penalty was unconstitutional. But they got cold feet when a case came along to revisit the question. One judge wrote that he wanted to wait and see if the Supreme Court of the United States would rule on the constitutionality of the new Illinois law. Another said precedent required him to follow the old state Supreme Court ruling with which he disagreed.

Even a pharmacist knows that doesn't make sense. We wouldn't have a death penalty today, and we all wouldn't be struggling with this issue, if those votes had been different. How arbitrary.

Several years after we enacted our death penalty statute, Girvies Davis was executed. Justice Simon writes that he was executed because of this unconstitutional aspect of the Illinois law – the wide latitude that each Illinois State's Attorney has to determine what cases qualify for the death penalty. One State's Attorney decided not to ask for the death sentence when Davis' first sentencing was sent back to the trial court for a new sentencing hearing. Instead, he was going to ask a life sentence. But in the interim, a new State's Attorney was elected and he decided he wanted the death penalty. He was successful in getting the death sentence and Davis was executed. How fair is that?

After the flaws in our death penalty system were exposed, the Supreme Court of Illinois began to reform its rules and improve the procedures for trying capital cases. It changed the rule to require that State's Attorney's give advance notice to defendants that they plan to seek the death penalty, before trial instead of after conviction. The Supreme Court also enacted new discovery rules designed to prevent trials by ambush and to allow for better investigation of cases from the beginning.

But shouldn't that mean if you were tried or sentenced before these important and essential reforms were enacted, to correct a clearly flawed system, that you ought to get a new trial or sentencing that will be more fair, just and accurate? This issue has divided our Supreme Court, some saying yes, a majority saying no. These justices have a lifetime of experience with the criminal justice system and it concerns me that these great minds so strenuously differ on an issue of such importance, especially where life or death hangs in the balance.

What are we to make of the studies that showed that more than 50% of Illinois jurors could not understand the confusing and obscure sentencing instructions that were being used? What effect did that problem have on the trustworthiness of death sentences? A review of the cases shows that often even the lawyers and judges are confused about the instructions - let alone the jurors sitting in judgment. Cases still come before the Supreme Court with arguments about whether the jury instructions were proper.

As I have said, I spent a good deal of time reviewing these death row cases. My staff, many of whom are lawyers, spent busy days and many sleepless nights answering my questions, providing me with information, giving me advice. It became clear to me that whatever decision I made, I would be criticized. It also became clear to me that it was impossible to make reliable choices about whether our capital punishment system had really done its job.

As I came closer to my decision, I knew that I was going to have to face the question of whether I believed so completely in the choice I wanted to make that I could face the prospect of even commuting the death sentence of Daniel Edwards – the man who had killed a close family friend of mine. Lura Lynn was angry and disappointed at my decision like many of the families of other victims will be.

I was struck by the anger of the families of murder victims. To a family they talked about closure. They pleaded with me to allow the state to kill an inmate in its name to provide the families with closure. But is that the purpose of capital punishment? Is it to soothe the families? And is that truly what the families experience.

I cannot imagine losing a family member to murder. Nor can I imagine spending every waking day for 20 years with a single-minded focus to execute the killer. The system of death in Illinois is so unsure that it is not unusual for cases to take 20 years before they are resolved. And thank God. If it had moved any faster, then Anthony Porter, the Ford Heights Four, Ronald Jones, Madison Hobley and the other innocent men we've exonerated might be dead and buried.

But it is cruel and unusual punishment for family members to go through this pain, this legal limbo for 20 years. Perhaps it would be less cruel if we sentenced the killers to life in a 6x12 cell, and used our resources to better serve victims.

My heart ached when I heard one grandmother who lost children in an arson fire. She said she could not afford proper grave markers for her grandchildren who died. Why can't the state help families provide a proper burial?

Another crime victim came to our family meetings. He believes an inmate sent to death row for another crime also shot and paralyzed him. The inmate he says gets free health care while the victim is struggling to pay his substantial medical bills and, as a result, he has forgone getting proper medical care to alleviate the physical pain he endures.

What kind of victim’s services are we providing? Are all of our resources geared toward providing this notion of closure by execution instead of tending to the physical and social service needs of victim families? And what kind of values are we instilling in these wounded families and in the young people? As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind.

President Lincoln often talked of binding up wounds as he sought to preserve the Union. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

I have had to consider not only the horrible nature of the crimes that put men on death row in the first place, the terrible suffering of the surviving family members of the victims, the despair of the family members of the inmates, but I have also had to watch in frustration as members of the Illinois General Assembly failed to pass even one substantive death penalty reform. Not one. They couldn’t even agree on ONE. How much more evidence is needed before the General Assembly will take its responsibility in this area seriously?

The fact is that the failure of the General Assembly to act is merely a symptom of the larger problem. Many people express the desire to have capital punishment. Few, however, seem prepared to address the tough questions that arise when the system fails. It is easier and more comfortable for politicians to be tough on crime and support the death penalty. It wins votes. But when it comes to admitting that we have a problem, most run for cover. Prosecutors across our state continue to deny that our death penalty system is broken – or they say if there is a problem, it is really a small one and we can fix it somehow. It is difficult to see how the system can be fixed when not a single one of the new reforms proposed by my Capital Punishment Commission has been adopted. Even the reforms the prosecutors agree with haven’t been adopted.

So when will the system be fixed? How much more risk can we afford? Will we actually have to execute an innocent person before the tragedy that is our capital punishment system in Illinois is really understood? This summer, a United States District court judge held the federal death penalty was unconstitutional and noted that with the number of recent exonerations based on DNA and new scientific technology we, without a doubt, executed innocent people before this technology emerged.

As I prepare to leave office, I had to ask myself whether I could really live with the prospect of knowing that I had the opportunity to act, but that I failed to do so because I might be criticized. Could I take the chance that our capital punishment system might be reformed, that wrongful convictions might not occur, that enterprising journalism students might free more men from death row? A system that’s so fragile that it depends on young journalism students is seriously flawed.

"There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending."

That’s what Abraham Lincoln said about the bloody war between the states. It was a war fought to end the sorriest chapter in American history--the institution of slavery. While we are not in a civil war now, we are facing what is shaping up to be one of the great civil rights struggles of our time. Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights has taken the position that the death penalty is being sought with increasing frequency against the poor and minorities.

Our own study showed that juries were more likely to sentence to death if the victim were white than if the victim were black--three-and-a-half times more likely to be exact. We are not alone. Just this month Maryland released a study of their death penalty system and racial disparities exist there too.

This week, Mamie Till Mobley died. Her son Emmett was lynched in Mississippi in the 1950s. She was a strong advocate for civil rights and reconciliation. In fact just three weeks ago, she was the keynote speaker at the Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation event in Chicago. This group opposes the death penalty even though their family members have been lost to senseless killing. Mamie's strength and grace not only ignited the civil rights movement--including inspiring Rosa Parks to refuse to go to the back of the bus--but inspired murder victims' families until her dying day.

Is our system fair to all? Is justice blind? These are important human rights issues, ones that need answers.

Another issue that came up in my individual, case-by-case review was the issue of international law. The Vienna Convention protects U.S. citizens abroad and foreign nationals in the United States. It provides that if you are arrested, you should be afforded the opportunity to contact your consulate. There are five men on death row who were denied that internationally recognized human right. Mexico's President Vicente Fox contacted me to express his deep concern for the Vienna Convention violations. . Based on my Commission’s findings and recommendations, this year I prepared and distributed to police agencies and prosecutors training materials to ensure compliance with the Vienna convention. If we do not uphold international law here, we cannot expect our citizens to be protected outside the United States.

My Commission recommended the Supreme Court conduct a proportionality review of our system in Illinois. While our appellate courts perform a case-by-case review of the appellate record, they have not done such a big picture study. Instead, they tinker with a case-by-case review as each appeal lands on their docket.

In 1994, near the end of his distinguished career on the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote an influential dissent in the body of law on capital punishment. 20 years earlier he was part of the court that issued the landmark Furman decision. The Court decided that the death penalty statutes in use throughout the country were fraught with severe flaws that rendered them unconstitutional. Quite frankly, they were the same problems we see here in Illinois. To many, it looked liked the Furman decision meant the end of the death penalty in the United States.

This was not the case. Many states responded to Furman by developing and enacting new and improved death penalty statutes. In 1976, four years after it had decided Furman, Justice Blackmun joined the majority of the United States Supreme Court in deciding to give the States a chance with these new and improved death penalty statutes. There was great optimism in the air.

This was the climate in 1977, when the Illinois legislature was faced with the momentous decision of whether to reinstate the death penalty in Illinois. I was a member of the General Assembly at that time and when I pushed the green button in favor of reinstating the death penalty in this great State, I did so with the belief that whatever problems had plagued the capital punishment system in the past were now being cured. I am sure that most of my colleagues who voted with me that day shared that view.

But 20 years later, after affirming hundreds of death penalty decisions, Justice Blackmun came to the realization, in the twilight of his distinguished career that the death penalty remains fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.” He expressed frustration with a 20-year struggle to develop procedural and substantive safeguards. In a now famous dissent he wrote in 1994, " From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death."

One of the few disappointments of my legislative and executive career is that the General Assembly failed to work with me to reform our deeply flawed system. I don't know why legislators could not heed the rising voices of reform. I don't know how many more systemic flaws we needed to uncover before they would be spurred to action.

Three times I proposed reforming the system with a package that would restrict the use of jailhouse snitches, create a statewide panel to determine death eligible cases, and reduce the number of crimes eligible for death. These reforms would not have created a perfect system, but they would have dramatically reduced the chance for error in the administration of the ultimate penalty.

The Governor has the constitutional role in our state of acting in the interest of justice and fairness. Our state constitution provides broad power to the Governor to issue reprieves, pardons and commutations. Our Supreme Court has reminded inmates petitioning them that while errors and fairness questions may actually exist and cannot recognized under judicial rules and procedural mandates, the last resort for relief is the Governor.

At times the executive clemency power has perhaps been a crutch for courts to avoid making the kind of major change that I believe our system needs.

Our systemic case-by-case review has found more cases of innocent men wrongfully sentenced to death row. Because our three year study has found only more questions about the fairness of the sentencing; because of the spectacular failure to reform the system; because we have seen justice delayed for countless death row inmates with potentially meritorious claims; because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

I cannot say it as eloquently than Justice Blackmun.

The legislature couldn't reform it.

Lawmakers won't repeal it.

But I will not stand for it.

I must act.

Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error—error in determining guilt, and error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die. Because of all of these reasons today I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates.

This is a blanket commutation. I realize it will draw ridicule, scorn and anger from many who oppose this decision. They will say I am usurping the decisions of judges and juries and state legislators. But as I have said, the people of our state have vested in me the power to act in the interest of justice. Even if the exercise of my power becomes my burden I will bear it. Our constitution compels it. I sought this office, and even in my final days of holding it, I cannot shrink from the obligations to justice and fairness that it demands.

There have been many nights where my staff and I have been deprived of sleep in order to conduct our exhaustive review of the system. But I can tell you this: I will sleep well knowing I made the right decision.

As I said when I declared the moratorium, it is time for a rational discussion on the death penalty, here in Illinois and all across America. While our experience in Illinois has indeed sparked a debate, we have fallen short of a rational discussion. Yet if I did not take this action, I feared that there would be no comprehensive and thorough inquiry into the guilt of the individuals on death row or of the fairness of the sentences applied.

To say it plainly one more time- the Illinois capital punishment system is broken. It has taken innocent men to a hair’s breadth escape from their unjust execution. Legislatures past have refused to fix it. Our new legislature and our new Governor must act to rid our state of the shame of threatening the innocent with execution and the guilty with unfairness.

In the days ahead, I will pray that we can open our hearts and provide something for victims' families other than the hope of revenge. Lincoln once said: " I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." I can only hope, with God’s help, that will be so. God bless you. And God bless the people of Illinois.


Return to Center on Wrongful Convictions Home Page

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

University of Illinois College of Law Professor Francis A. Boyle nominated former Illinois Governor George Ryan for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize because of his courageous, heroic and principled opposition to the racist and class-based Death Penalty system in America. Due to George Ryan`s continued and proven commitment to seek justice for the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, and People of Color in America, he has become one of a handful of courageous voices calling for an end to the repressive political, legal, and social climate that keeps the death penalty alive in this country. George Ryan has performed more effective work against the death penalty than the entire American abolitionist movement put together.

As a consequence he has drawn the vindictive attention of the stridently pro-death penalty U.S. Department of Justice. It is no coincidence that the racist and pro-death penalty U.S. Department of Justice indicted George Ryan for allegedly misappropriating $167,000 over a ten-year period of time soon after he had liberated 167 human beings from the Illinois death row, two-thirds of whom were People of Color. This indictment and persecution were designed to send a message to George Ryan and to the American abolitionist movement that the U.S. Department of Justice will continue to fight its rearguard action against the mortally wounded death penalty system in America. It was Governor George Ryan who inflicted that grievous blow upon the entire American death penalty system. He is now paying a very heavy price for his courage, integrity, and principles. For that reason, he richly deserves to win the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Governor Ryan is one of 191 registered Candidates for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The name of the recipient will be announced in mid-October 2006.

Professor Boyle may be contacted for comments or interviews at the at the following:

Phone: 1-217-333-7954

Fax: 1-217-244-1478

Email: committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org

Website: http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org

Visit our web site for complete information about Ryan’s work

and our campaign to support him.

Italy Foreign Min: EU Must Urge Global Death-Penalty Halt

Italy Foreign Min: EU Must Urge Global Death-Penalty Halt

ROME (AP)

Italy's foreign minister will call on E.U. countries later this month to come together to push for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty, the ministry said Friday.

After the Dec. 30 execution of Saddam Hussein, Premier Romano Prodi's center- left-government began a diplomatic push to have the moratorium initiative taken up by the U.N. General Assembly. Past lobbying by Italy for U.N. action against the death penalty has been unsuccessful.

The ministry said Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema would urge E.U. countries at a meeting Jan. 22 to agree on a common strategy to help stop executions around the world.Saddam's execution was denounced virtually across Italy's political spectrum, with former premier and conservative opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi calling the killing a political error and Prodi expressing worry that the hanging would fuel more violence in Iraq.

The gruesome and inadvertent decapitation of Saddam's half-brother when he was hanged two weeks later horrified people worldwide.Italy and all other E.U. countries don't permit capital punishment. However, countries including the U.S., Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and China have the death penalty.

GOVERNOR GEORGE RYAN HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE 2005 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 14, 2005

GOVERNOR GEORGE RYAN HAS BEEN NOMINATED FOR THE 2005 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

On Monday, January 17, 2005 the United States of America will celebrate the annual National Holiday in honor of the late, great and martyred civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

To mark this occasion, University of Illinois College of Law Professor Francis A. Boyle has nominated former Illinois Governor George Ryan for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize because of his courageous and heroic opposition to the racist death penalty system in America, which differentially targets African Americans. 42% of America's death row population are African Americans. Of those defendants executed in the United States since 1976, 34% were African Americans. Of the 167 persons whom George Ryan liberated from Illinois' racist death row two years ago, about 60% were African Americans.

Illinois proudly boasts that it is "The Land of Lincoln": President Abraham Lincoln, a resident of Illinois, freed the slaves. In the tradition of Lincoln, Governor Ryan freed over 100 descendants of slaves from Illinois' racist death row. As Dr. King's associate the Reverend Jesse Jackson has persuasively argued, today the administration of the Death Penalty in America is nothing more than a system of "Legal Lynching" (1996) against African Americans and other People of Color. The time has long passed for America to eliminate this racist and barbaric measure of state terrorism directed against African Americans, other People of Color, and poor Whites. Toward that end, George Ryan has performed more effective work against the racist death penalty system in America than the entire American Abolitionist Movement combined. For that reason, he richly deserves to win the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. Just as the elimination of slavery in America emanated from "The Land of Lincoln," so too the final elimination of the death penalty from America shall be traced back to George Ryan and the State of Illinois.

Professor Boyle may be contacted for comments or interviews at the following:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA

217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)

fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Website: http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/

Ohio: Dianne Abshire – Phone: 419-523-5816 Fax 1-419-538-7273
Germany:Britta Slopianka – Phone: 4193-888-359 . Fax: 4193-888-617
Norway: Sissel Egeland – Phone 47 98622499. Fax: 1-813-354-4809

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- DECEMBER 16, 2003

GEORGE H. RYAN TO BE NOMINATED FOR THE

2004 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

As the deadline approaches for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize nominations,
Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at

the University of Illinois, has decided to re-nominate ex Governor George H. Ryan of Illinois.

Professor Boyle nominated Ryan last year and explains

his decision to nominate him again as follows.

"Since retiring as Illinois Governor, George Ryan has launched a one-man crusade

all over the world against the death penalty.

He has probably done more effective work against the death penalty than

all the rest of the American Abolitionists put together"

states Professor Boyle.

After three years of thorough review of all capital cases in his State, George Ryan

declared the capital punishment system

in Illinois "broken", and commuted the sentences of all 167 inmates sitting on

Death Row in Illinois jails on January 11th, 2003.

Since then he has been actively campaigning in the United States and in Europe in

an attempt to bring the use of the death penalty

in the USA to an end.

The Death Penalty is a system, which cannot be fixed. It is broken and flawed.

Human justice will never be infallible.

Ryan has been appointing Honorary Chairman of the European activist group,

Hands off Cain.

In this capacity he lead the campaign

to have the European Parliament petition the United Nations to pass a resolution

demanding that the US stop using Capital Punishment.

Capital Punishment is contrary to all International Human Rights codes

and the USA is the only Western Liberal Democracy

still practicing this Human Rights violation.

The USA kills more of their own citizens in the name of justice than any other country

in the world with the exception of China and Iran.

That fact notwithstanding, the task of bringing this practice

to an end in USA is enormous.

The Campaign to Support George Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize believes

that international support would be an important aid

to help Ryan continue his fight to end the Death Penalty.

George Ryan has shown courage and strength in his continuing struggle.

It is commonly rumored that he was among

the top hand full of finalists for the 2003 award, which was won

by Shirin Ebadi of Iran.

With our support we trust that 2004 will be the year that George Ryan

wins the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the USA is given one more message that

the rest of the democratic world abhors capital punishment.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in MS Word format, please click here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 7, 2003

Nobel Nominee George Ryan active in Europe

George Ryan who is a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded on Friday Oct 10 2003 has been active recently in Europe assisting the abolitionist activist group known as Hands Off Cain to support and promote a resolution to the United Nations calling for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the Death Penalty.

Here is the information from the Hands Off Cain (HOC) web site:

September 30, 2003: the European mission conducted by former governor of Illinois and current Hands Off Cain Honorary President George Ryan, together with Leroy Orange, ex death row inmate who is alive thanks to the moratorium on executions introduced by the governor in his state, came to an end on Monday in Brussels.

In the morning an HOC delegation consisting of President Marco Pannella, Secretary Sergio D’Elia, Treasurer Elisabetta Zamparutti, Board Member Anna Zammit, together with Ryan and Orange, met with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini just before the commencement of the EU General Affairs Council meeting he was to preside over. On the agenda was the European Parliament and Italian Presidency’s proposal of presenting, at the ongoing UN General Assembly, a resolution in favour of a universal moratorium on capital executions.

The HOC delegation later met the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi, who gave his support towards Hands Off Cain’s campaign.

“Putting an end to the death penalty is not only an act of prudence, but also one of wisdom,” Prodi said at the end of the meeting.

In the evening Ryan and Orange participated at a conference held at the European Parliament which saw the presentation of the English edition of Hands Off Cain’s 2003 Report: The Death Penalty Worldwide, and the launch of an online signature campaign, aimed at EU Parliamentarians, for a universal moratorium on capital executions.

Both initiatives were sponsored by the European Union.

More information is available on the HOC web site at http://www.handsoffcain.org/. For local information or interviews contact Prof Francis A. Boyle at:

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – October 2, 2003

Former Gov. Ryan mentioned as possible finalist for Nobel Peace Prize

An Associated Press story out of Oslo Norway reports the following:

“Nobel watchers say there is no clear favorite for this year's prize, but some names bandied about include Pope John Paul II, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Another is former Illinois Gov. George Ryan for emptying his state's death row of 167 inmates.”

George H. Ryan was nominated by Professor Francis Boyle for this years Nobel Peace prize.

The Campaign to support the nomination of George H. Ryan for the Nobel peace prize has collected over 1000 signatures of support from Americans and people around the world on their web site. This document has been filed with the Nobel Peace Prize committee. The list of supporters and their comments are available at
http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/supporters.html.

This weekend at an NAACP conference in Chicago, former Gov. George Ryan of Illinois will receive the prestigious NAACP Humanitarian Award.

Ex Governor Ryan has just returned from a human rights tour of Europe with Hands Off Cain, an abolitionist and human rights action group. Leroy Orange, an innocent man whose confession obtained by torture put him on death row, has been accompanying Ryan. Orange was one of the four inmates set free by Ryan. Ryan and the group held talks with European leaders and the UN who are seeking to have the USA and Japan establish moratorium against the death penalty.

Ryan has travelled and done extensive public speaking since he left office, which has continued to focus attention of the problems with the death Penalty in the US.

Dr. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law and a member of the committee to support Ryan’s Nobel peace Prize nomination is available for comments or interviews. He can be reached at:

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.

---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

January 17, 2003

BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Ryan's Nobel Nomination Completed and Filed

January 16, 2003: It is official: George Ryan is now a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Francis A. Boyle announced "I have today filed the Nomination by fax with the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway. StopCapitalPunishment.org will now focus its efforts on promoting and lobbying on behalf of Governor Ryan to be awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize."

Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, a member of the Campaign to nominate George H. Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize made good on his promise by completing and filing the nomination papers recommending ex Governor Ryan of Illinois for the Nobel Peace Prize late yesterday.

Professor Boyle noted that "By exposing the inhumanity of capital punishment in the United States, George H. Ryan has, in the words of Alfred Nobel, "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.""

The reasons to which Boyle referred are well documented and many. The highlights are the moratorium on the death penalty that Ryan declared in 2000, culminating with his courageous and historic exonerations of January 10th and the commutation of all the remaining Illinois death row prisoner's sentences on January 11th, just two days before he officially left office.

Ryan's actions have been the subject of both praise and bitter attack. But one thing is certain; the future of the Death Penalty in the United States has been irrevocably changed. George W. Bush who presided over the execution of more people in Texas than any other Governor in history - 156 souls by actual count - was rarely questioned about this in his run for the Presidency. In the aftermath of George Ryan's groundbreaking action it is hard to imagine this ever happening again.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download an Italian Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a Swedish Language version in PDF format, please click here.

---

7
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 14, 2003
BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Ryan Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - The Canadian Connection

On December 19 the decision was made by Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois to nominate the then Governor of Illinois, George H. Ryan for the Nobel peace Prize in recognition of his courageous and ground breaking work on the death penalty. Governor Ryan was scheduled to leave office on January 13, 2003. There was much speculation about whether or not he would exercise his constitutional prerogative and exonerate or commute the sentences of any of the inmates on death row in Illinois.
While the decision had been made to nominate Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize regardless of what he did upon leaving office it was hoped that the campaign would support and encouragement for him to issue a blanket clemency order.

The question was how could the campaign have any impact in such a short time period? The answer appeared to be electronically via the Internet. Bob Wakfer, a human rights activist and life long abolitionist and president of Computer Partners, a Waterloo Ontario web design and web hosting company had the solution. With the assistance of his web master, Marcel Penton a web site was created between 1:00 and 5:00 pm on Christmas Eve.

An ad hoc team of volunteer from around the world was assembled with strong representation from Norway, France, Germany and Italy. A series of Press Releases was immediately distributed by email to media outlets around the world. The first mention of the Campaign and the pending Nomination of Governor Ryan appeared in the State Journal Of Springfield Illinois January 1, 2003. Since then Professor Boyle has given a series of almost non-stop interviews on radio, TV and to newspaper reporters.

The web site, which can be found at http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/ is the heart of this campaign. The press releases have been translated in German, French and Italian and are available for download below. A supporter's page was established, and to date over 600 people from around the world have signed up to indicate their support for Governor Ryan and his nomination.

Links to much of the press coverage can be found on the web site and the full transcript of Ryan's speech in which he commuted the sentences of 167 Death Row inmates is available in English, French and German by clicking here.

This campaign has only been possible thought the use of the Internet and electronic communication. And this has all been made possible by the Canadian connection.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.

---

6
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 12, 2003
BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

In the Land of Lincoln Governor Ryan Is a Nobel Successor!

In a much-anticipated speech Saturday, Gov. George H. Ryan today commuted the sentences of all 167 men on Illinois Death Row.

Despite much criticism in the United States, the international media, foreign governments, abolitionists and people around the world are praising the governor’s action as historical, ground breaking and above all courageous. The hope of much of the rest of the world is that Governor Ryan's speech, may signal the beginning of the end for the Death Penalty in the United States.

Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois will nominate Gov. Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has discussed the Governor's courage and commitment to justice in several media interviews over the past week. Professor Boyle has issued the following statement:

"As a long-time abolitionist I must state in all honesty that during the past three years Illinois Governor George Ryan has done more effective work against the death penalty than all of us American abolitionists put together. That is precisely why I am going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize as soon as we can put the nomination papers together."

Francis A. Boyle
Professor of International Law
Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1988-92)

Ryan’s three years of activism, concluding as it has with the exoneration and blanket clemency decisions of the last couple of days places him in a unique and special category as a fighter for civil and human rights, justice and equality. We at http://www.StopCapitalPunishment.org believe that he is an outstanding candidate to be awarded a Nobel Laureate. It is our intention to promote him, support him and lobby for him until the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize is awarded.

We invite all like-minded people to join us in this pursuit.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.

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5
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 9, 2003
BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Death Penalty-Fighting Gov Deserves Nobel

New York Newsday, New York, NY
Sheryl McCarthy

Newsday, a major daily of the New York Metro area, published an article today supporting the nomination of Gov. George Ryan of Illinois for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ms. Sheryl McCarthy of Newsday wrote: "Ryan caused a nationwide stir in January 2000, when he put a halt to executions in Illinois until the state could study how they were being administered. The reason? Illinois had exonerated more death row inmates in the 23 years since capital punishment became legal again than it had executed. "Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate," Ryan declared."

Professor Francis Boyle told the author yesterday (Jan. 8th) that "George Ryan has done more to stop the death penalty here in the United States in the last three years than all of us abolitionists put together. It's Gov. Ryan, a conservative Republican, who has opened up this debate." A committee headed by the University of Illinois law professor says it plans to nominate Illinois Gov. George Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize this year because of his "heroic" and "principled" stand on the death penalty.

"Until I can be sure that everyone sentenced to death in Illinois is truly guilty, until I can be sure with moral certainty that no innocent man or woman is facing a lethal injection, no one will meet that fate," Ryan declared in January 2000, when he declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois.

Ms. McCarthy states: "Gov. Ryan's decision was gutsy, especially since he doesn't oppose the death penalty on its face - just the application of it in a classist, racist way that gives a fair shake only to those who can afford to hire good lawyers. Illinois' moratorium made people all over the country take another look at how the death penalty was being applied. Whatever he decides, he's already taken a giant step toward eliminating the death penalty - an archaic, inhumane and capricious punishment in the world's most powerful country. Lots of people have won prizes for doing less."

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download an Italian Language version in PDF format, please click here.

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4
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 9, 2003
BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Pope issues Plea to Governor Ryan for Blanket Clemency

Apostolic Nunciature
United States of America
22 August 2002
N. 15997/3424

Dear Governor Ryan,

I am writing to you as the Official Representative of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II here in the United States of America. The Holy Father has happily noted that you have declared a moratorium on the executions of inmates on death row in the State of Illinois. For this, He is most grateful and would like to express His heartfelt support and blessings. The moratorium on the executions is a very positive step towards a culture of life and of non-violence. I am sure you are aware of the Holy Father's commitment to upholding the sacredness and dignity of each human life, from the moment of conception until the moment of natural death. For this reason He has made many appeals to Heads of Governments, particularly in the United States, for the eventual abolition of the death penalty. The Holy Father would therefore like to ask you to take another step in the defense of life by commuting all death sentences into life in prison without the possibility of parole within the State of Illinois. It is my sincere hope that you will give need to this urgent petition. Before I conclude, I would like to humbly include my personal greetings and I assure you of my prayers, for you, for your family and for the exercise of your important responsibilities.

Respectfully and truly yours,
[Signed]
Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo
Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download an Italian Language version in PDF format, please click here.

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3
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - January 6, 2003

Web Site created and launched to support an International Campaign to Nominate Governor Ryan for Nobel Peace Prize. See http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, December 24, 2002, a web site was launched as the communication center and focal point of this worldwide campaign. This campaign may be unique because to date none of the committee or volunteers has met face to face. The campaign has been planned and run exclusively via email and other Internet technologies. The web site is the voluntary contribution of Bob Wakfer, a Canadian, and is maintained by Wakfer and other members of his staff in Waterloo Ontario.

This International Campaign and the Nomination of Governor George H. Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize is the Brain Child of Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign and a member of the Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1988-92). Professor Boyle conceived the idea upon attending a speech against the death penalty given by Governor George H. Ryan on Dec. 19 at his Law School. The idea for the campaign was presented to a small but international group of abolitionist volunteers who started work immediately.

The Campaign's first Press Release was posted on the web site on December 31. The volunteers emailed copies of the press release to media outlets in the US and around the World. The Press Release has been translated into German, French and Italian and these versions as well as the original English are available for electronic download below. Click here to view. Interviews and news stories started immediately. Links to the Internet copies of these stories are posted to the site daily.

In addition a Supporters Sign Up page was placed on the site. People are invited to show their support for this campaign by leaving their names and addresses and a message of support if they wish. People from all over the World as well as the United States have indicated their support both for the Campaign and for Blanket Clemency for the inmates of Death Row in Illinois. There are supporters from Great Britain and virtually every European country as well as from Canada and the United States. One of the more notable supporters to sign up is Mike Farrell, of M*A*S*H fame. To date more than 200 people have taken the time to indicate their support on the web site.

After only 12 days the site has had more than 1100 unique visitors from 31 different countries.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.

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2
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - DECEMBER 31, 2002
BY THE CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT THE NOMINATION OF GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN FOR THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Contact: mailto:committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org

George H. Ryan to be nominated by Campaign Committee Member Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at the University of Illinois. Press conference to be held at the Illinois State Capitol Press Room on Monday, January 6, 2003, at 1 P.M.

As the January 13, 2003 deadline approaches an international campaign has begun to nominate Gov. George Ryan of Illinois for the Nobel Peace Prize. Gov. Ryan known for his imposition of a moratorium of the death penalty in Illinois has been lauded for his courage and public outrage at the number of wrongful capital convictions in his state.

Francis Boyle, professor of International Law at the Univ. of Chicago, Champaign, said "As a Professor of International Law and Human Rights, I will nominate Illinois Governor George Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize because of his principled and courageous opposition to the racist and class-based death penalty system that we have here in the State of Illinois, the Land of Abraham Lincoln. George Ryan is a worthy successor."

Professor Boyle will officially nominate Gov. Ryan for the prize.

Katie Williams, an American member of the Campaign to support the Nomination of Governor George H. Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize, stresses the courage that it took to impose the moratorium and the additional commitment to justice that it will take to commute the sentences of those on Illinois' death row. "The struggle to abolish the death penalty in America is a fight that has been fought for many years and on many fronts. Gov. Ryan's courage in confronting the inequities in the imposition of the death penalty and his sincere desire to see justice done for all in the state of Illinois is a beacon of hope."

In Norway Sissel Egeland urges Scandinavians to stay updated about the enormous personal effort Governor Ryan has made to end the flaws in the death penalty system to secure that innocent persons will not be executed. "The moratorium has inspired Americans to end the inhuman death penalty system and to join the rest of the world in the care for human rights and justice. A nomination of Governor Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize will send an important message to the international society that the use of the death penalty shall now be ancient history and unite Europeans and courageous Americans to stand up for ethics and human rights in all international relations."

Prior to the Illinois General Assembly resuming its work later that afternoon, Professor Boyle will conduct a Press Conference at the Illinois State Capitol Press Room on Monday, January 6, 2003, at 1 P.M. to announce the Nobel Peace Prize Nomination and Campaign for Governor Ryan. Springfield is the Capital of the State of Illinois.

The campaign is supported by a very active web site that can be found at http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/. The web site is both a resource to anyone wanting to know more about Governor Ryan's achievements and a bulletin board for all the latest developments in the campaign. Press releases and other resources for the media and press will be available there. It is interesting to note that although the site has only been available on the Internet since late on Christmas Eve afternoon that at the time of writing -- December 30 at 8:00 pm -- there have already been 100 people who have voluntarily signed up on the web site as supporters of the campaign.

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954(voice)
217-244-1478(fax)
fboyle@law.uiuc.edu

Sissel Egeland
Norway
Phone: 47- 51587350 ( Norway )
Fax: 1-813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from Europe
Fax : 813-354-4809 ( Florida ) from US
denmark@online.no

Katie Williams
2 Boiceville Rd
Brooktondale, NY 14817
Phone: 607-539-7537
kaw34@CORNELL.EDU

Rick Halperin
Human Rights; History Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas; Board of Directors, Amnesty International USA (1989-1995, Board
Chair, 1992-93); President, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty (2000-present)
SMU PO Box 750172
Dallas, Texas 75275
Phone: 214-768-3284
Fax: 214-768-3475
rhalperi@mail.smu.edu

Bob Wakfer
105 Greenbrier Drive
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
Phone: 519-746-1607
Fax : 519-746-7566
bob@compar.com

You can also contact us at committee@stopcapitalpunishment.org.

To download this English Language press release in PDF format, please click here.
To download a French Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download a German Language version in PDF format, please click here.
To download an Italian Language version in PDF format, please click here.

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1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., and families of Inmates on Illinois
Death Row Visit the Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Illinois
on New Year's Eve

(Chicago, IL, December 30, 2002) Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.,
founder and president of The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, together with
family members of Death Row Inmates, and a delegation of death
penalty activists will visit inmates convicted under Illinois capital
punishment laws on the last day of the year.

Illinois Governor George Ryan brought heightened awareness to the
issue of disparities in the convictions, sentences, and execution of
the death penalty in America when he set a moratorium on the
implementation of the death penalty within the state. In Illinois, 13
men sentenced to death were found to be wrongfully convicted.
Reverend Jackson and the delegation are calling for Governor Ryan to
grant clemency to all Illinois Death Row inmates prior to leaving
office on January 13, 2002.

"The reality is that the death penalty is a human rights issue," said
Rev. Jackson. "Unlike other less civilized‚ nations, the United
States maintains a system of legal lynching, notwithstanding the
mental condition of the convicted, or the adequacy of legal
representation afforded the accused. America braggadociously boasts
of moral authority, yet a glaring chink in the American armor is the
death penalty."

Joining Reverend Jackson will be Alice Kim and Marlene Martin of the
Campaign to End the Death Penalty and Rob Warden of Northwestern
University's Center on Wrongful Convictions. The delegation will meet
with Illinois Death Row inmates, including the "Death Row 10," a
group of African American men tortured by former Chicago Police
Commander Jon Burge and his detectives.

Reverend Jackson and the delegation will arrive at Pontiac at 11:00
AM. Following the visit, there will be a press conference, outside
the front gate of the Correctional Center, beginning at 12:30 PM.