Ultimate Punishment Read Free Page A

RYAN
    T HE MAN who declared Illinois’ moratorium on executions and who appointed me to his Commission on Capital Punishment remains one of the more enigmatic figures in recent local history. On looks, George Ryan, snow-capped and agreeably round, might be mistaken for an applicant for a seasonal opening as a department store Santa, but his tenure as Illinois’ Governor from January 1999 to January 2003 was not always jolly. Throughout his years in the Executive Mansion, Ryan was engulfed by a scandal focused on the office he held before being elected Governor, when he was Illinois’ Secretary of State. By the time Ryan left office, at least fifty persons, many Ryan’s former Secretary of State employees, had been convicted in federal court, a number in connection with selling drivers’ licenses for bribes. Worse, both Ryan’s ex-chief of staff and Ryan’s political campaign fund had been indicted (and were later convicted in March 2003) for racketeering in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud taxpayers by using the workers and facilities of the Secretary of State’s office for Ryan’s gubernatorial campaign. Rumors of the Governor’s imminent indictment were rife during much of his time in office.
    Despite this, Ryan neither circled the wagons nor ducked tough issues that risked further eroding his political support. A moderate-to-conservative Republican, Ryan had nonetheless run to the left of his pro-gun, anti-abortion Democratic opponent during the election. Whatever the hopes of conservative Republicans, in office Ryan hewed to the moderate agenda he promised, which was very much in line with the middle-of-the-road approach that had kept Republican governors in power in Illinois for decades. He aided business interests, but instead of a tax cut, he used the budget surplus he found when he entered office in 1999 to reverse the prevailing trend of starving schools and roads. He visited Cuba in hopes of selling Illinois agricultural products, vetoed a bill to cut off Medicaid funding of abortions, and supported anti-gun legislation.
    Professionally, Ryan was a pharmacist who’d run a chain of family-owned drugstores in Kankakee, a small Illinois city just far enough from Chicago to be outside the bright lights. He started in politics in the 1960s on the county board, eventually becoming Illinois’ Speaker of the House from 1981 to 1983. He served two four-year terms as Lieutenant Governor, then spent eight years as Secretary of State, before finally being elected Governor in 1998, culminating what surely must have been a lifelong dream. He is the image of the plain-spoken, unworldly Midwesterner, pragmatic and determinedly unimpressed with himself. At a dinner in the home of a mutual friend, I watched Governor Ryan get up from the table to clear his own plate; guests who spent the night at the Executive Mansion reported that before going to bed, the Governor walked around turning off the lights.
    When he spoke privately about some of his tougher decisions as Governor, including the death penalty issue, Ryan often referred to his experience as a pharmacist. I think he saw his role in government as not all that different—he was trying to help people overcome what ailed them. The sheer harshness of the death penalty always seemed to me inconsistent with the core of George Ryan’s character.
    That said, Illinois politics is a rough-and-tumble world and one with a long tradition of public officials who somehow find their hands—or those of their friends—in the cookie jar. The corruption allegations that swirled throughout Ryan’s term are not atypical in my home state. Speculation about the Governor’s motives in championing a cause as unpopular as death penalty reform was a favorite parlor game. Was he trying to deflect attention from the grand jury probe? Was he hoping to create another legacy besides scandal?
    I had never met George Ryan when he