Thursday, December 4, 2008 8:53 PM CST
Illinois Attorney General says Ryan's sentence should not be commuted
By the ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Thursday that former Gov. George Ryan’s corruption sentence should not be commuted to time served, saying the bribery scandal involving his tenure as secretary of state led to the deaths of six children in a single family.
“I do not believe that George Ryan should get a commutation of his sentence,” Madigan told reporters following a hearing in Chicago. She pointed to the November 1994 expressway accident in which six children in the family of the Rev. Scott Willis of Chicago were killed.
The license of a truck driver involved in the accident is believed to have been bought from a state employee who admitted donating such bribe money to Ryan’s campaign.
“The six Willis children died,” the Democratic attorney general said. “Thirteen million people in Illinois were harmed.”
Ryan, a Republican, was convicted of shutting down an investigation of bribes paid in exchange for drivers licenses, using state money and employees to operate his political campaigns and steering contracts to friends and favored lobbyists.
He has served one year of a 6½-year sentence in federal prison and has asked President Bush to commute his sentence. Presidents customarily issue pardons and commute sentences just before leaving office.
Just before leaving the governor’s office in January 2003, Ryan freed four death row inmates, saying there was insufficient evidence to justify their convictions. He commuted the sentences of all other condemned prisoners in Illinois to life.
Ryan has repeatedly said the Willis tragedy wasn’t his fault.
In his letter to Bush several weeks ago, however, he said: “My heart is heavy knowing that I have hurt the public, my family and my friends in failing to keep their trust. I failed them and for that I have profound remorse.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, who chaired the Thursday morning mortgage foreclosure hearing where Madigan was a witness, has asked Bush to consider commuting the sentence. He cited Ryan’s age, 74, and said his wife, Lura Lynn, is in frail health.
Asked again about his stand in favor of commutation Thursday, Durbin acknowledged many have disagreed with him but held firm — and said he took his stand with the full knowledge of the entire state.
“I did not quietly send the letter and slink off into the shadows,” he said.
Madigan has said she is “thinking about” a run for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2010, but brushed aside questions about her intentions Thursday.
Asked when she might announce something, she said “When I decide,” adding she wouldn’t be setting any deadline.
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