Clemency push for all 160 on Death Row

Lawyers group pins hope on Ryan vow to consider cases

 Gov. Ryan discusses clemency with Spike O'Dell

May 16, 2002 

By Steve Mills

Tribune staff reporter

Hoping to capitalize on Gov. George Ryan's pledge to consider commuting all death sentences to life in prison, a group of attorneys who defend condemned prisoners is leading an effort to submit clemency applications for Illinois' 160 Death Row inmates.

In mailings to other attorneys, the lawyers are forwarding such information as guidelines to writing and filing clemency petitions, a checklist of what should be included in a filing, and a rough draft from a generic petition that can be tailored to a defendant's circumstances.

The lawyers also are offering tips on making as compelling a case as possible, including suggestions to link problems in their clients' case with proposed reforms to the death penalty system and to use Ryan's statements that he views the death penalty system as broken.

 The group's "clemency initiative" is geared toward completing petitions for every condemned inmate who wants to submit one and filing them with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board by Aug. 26 so Ryan can consider them before he leaves office.

 The effort "addresses a fundamental question left dangling in the air: that these reforms on a going-forward basis are important, but that we have to look backward as well and consider what the impact of the system has been on people who are already under a sentence of death," said Locke Bowman, an attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center in Chicago and one of the "team leaders" in the effort.

 The broad move to file clemency petitions comes two months after Ryan, at a death penalty conference in Oregon, first said he might commute to life in prison the sentences of all inmates on Illinois' Death Row.

 At the time, Ryan had requested files on every Death Row inmate, although he said it was unlikely he would review each individually.

 "Of course, the clients are interested because they know what Ryan has said," said Marshall Hartman, deputy defender for the capital litigation division of the Illinois appellate defender's office. "The fear is that when Gov. Ryan leaves, that will be the end of the moratorium."

 Several of the other "team leader" lawyers helping to coordinate the work are in Hartman's office, including Hartman, Charles Hoffman and Steve Clark..

 Devine opposed

 Ryan's comments stirred controversy, sparking harsh words from some legislators and prosecutors who grudgingly accept the moratorium but oppose any wholesale grant of clemency.

 John Gorman, a spokesman for Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine, said this week that Devine's office would oppose a blanket commutation.

 "If the governor starts granting individual commutations, we would deal with the Cook County convicts on a case-by-case basis," Gorman said in a statement. "The great bulk of these cases have been weighed by a jury, a judge and various appellate courts, and any commutation should consider the victims' families in these capital cases."

 The preparation now by dozens of attorneys across the state seems to reflect a sense of a rare opportunity and an effort to keep pressure on a legislature that many believe is unlikely to enact sweeping reform.

 Many of those reforms were proposed by the death penalty panel Ryan appointed two years ago, after he declared a moratorium on executions.

 None of the reforms would be retroactive, meaning inmates already on Death Row would not benefit from them. On several occasions, Ryan has said that he believes the cases of those prisoners must somehow be addressed.

 Dennis Culloton, the governor's spokesman, said Ryan is focused on the state budget and will deal with the death penalty in the near future. He said Ryan had not made a decision about commutations.

 Clemency petitions must be filed with the Prisoner Review Board by Aug. 26 to be considered on the board's fall docket--the next to last before Ryan leaves office in mid-January, but the last session that would give the board time to consider the applications.

 Under state statute, the Prisoner Review Board--which also meets the first week of January, days before Ryan leaves office--hears cases, votes on them and then makes a confidential recommendation to the governor.

 But the 14-member board has never been faced with such a large number of petitions from Death Row, and that challenge may require the help of additional attorneys and staff or additional hearing days.

 In the first two dockets of this year, the board had 254 cases. Ken Tupy, the board's general counsel, said he expects about the same number for the second half of the year, plus however many come from Death Row. 

If the board does not make a recommendation on a case or if an inmate does not file a petition, state law does not answer clearly whether the governor can still commute a death sentence.

 Tupy, who has been studying the clemency issue, said, "Could he do it? Yes. Would it be challenged in court? Probably. What would the outcome be? I don't know."

 Much of what lies ahead is uncharted. State law outlines the procedures for handling clemency petitions, but the Illinois Constitution also gives the governor broad executive powers, particularly in clemency cases.

 "What would happen if the governor ignored the statute? I don't know," said Tupy. "That has never happened and there aren't any cases on it."

 Garcia case

 In January 1996, Gov. Jim Edgar commuted the death sentence of convicted murderer Guinevere Garcia to life in prison without parole even though Garcia did not ask for clemency and, consequently, never signed a petition filed on her behalf.

 In response, the legislature changed state law to require that Death Row inmates give written consent to apply for clemency unless they are physically or mentally incapable.

 Other governors have commuted death sentences to life without parole, but never as many as Ryan will be asked to do before the end of the year.

 Days before he left office in January 1991, Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste commuted the sentences of four men and four women on Death Row to life in prison.

 New Mexico Gov. Toney Anaya commuted the death sentences of five men in 1986, weeks before he left office. And in 1970, Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller commuted the sentences of more than a dozen men, then everyone on that state's Death Row.

 In Illinois, at least two Death Row inmates have clemency petitions on file. Petitions from Ronald Kliner and Aaron Patterson--both of whom say they are innocent--were heard in October 2000, and confidential recommendations were made to Ryan's office. Ryan has not acted on either case.