Posted by Dan Ewert : 1/29/2003 11:39:00 PM (Archive Link)
You’ve probably already read about former Illinois governor George Ryan commuting the sentences of all the state’s Death Row inmates to life without parole. He says he did it because of his conscience and the possibility that one or two of the 156 convicts may actually be innocent or were unfairly sentenced on the basis of race or poverty. He also completely pardoned four individuals on death row because he thinks they confessed under torture. He pardoned them… that means he let them go free.

This is one of the most disgraceful things a public official could do. Let’s leave aside for the moment the morality of the death penalty. What concerns me here is that one man has overridden both the legislature and the judiciary in a blanket commutation. He has taken a dictatorial act in declaring the three branches united in him. He nullified the punishment the state’s legislature prescribed for certain offenses and he simultaneously sidestepped the judicial system’s trials and prosecutions of the criminals and the appeals process. As one prosecutor put it, “Everybody has had not their day in court, they’ve had their years in court. It’s shameful that the victims of this state, in fact, have to not fear the courts, not the defense lawyers, not the defendants, but they have to fear their very own governor.” It is an extremely dangerous act when an elected public official subverts the law and the mechanics of law whether because of selfish desire or benevolent self-conscience. Such subversion substantially weakens the power of both. In this respect, Ryan has done far more harm than good.

Another concern is that he commuted the sentences of those who were absolutely, positively, no doubt about it guilty. It would have been somewhat bearable if Ryan had at least done a little homework to identify those whose guilt might hold a little doubt for him. Instead, he lumped everybody in the same group.

Another irksome aspect about this, and it’s connected to the previous thought, is that these people are not choir boys; they’re criminals of the worst kind. Remember that if you’re sentenced to death, it’s because you committed a horrible murder. Every murder is horrible, of course, but the death penalty usually means the crime was abnormally ugly. Consider the following folks:

— Lorenzo Fayne: Stabbed or strangled four girls, ages 9 to 17. He sexually assaulted one victim and molested the body of another.

— Anthony Brown: Strangled and suffocated a 67-year-old woman in her home. He had previously served time in prison for rape.

— Evan Griffith: While already serving a sentence for murder, stabbed a fellow inmate to death at the Pontiac Correctional Center.

— Lenard Johnson: Stabbed an 11-year-old boy to death and sexually assaulted three girls, ages 7, 11, and 13, while babysitting them in their home.

— Fedell Caffey and Jacqueline Williams: Shot a pregnant woman in her home, cut the nearly full-term baby from her womb, and stabbed her two children.

These are some of the people who Ryan is holding up as the poster boys of death penalty reform. Nice choices. Just imagine how the friends and families of the victims feel about all this.