Those willing to go against their own prevailing stereotypes most often display political acts of courage. The personal racist beliefs of Harry Truman did not stop him from integrating the Army when even though it almost cost him the presidency. President Lyndon Johnson, who cut his teeth on segregationist policies, authored the most sweeping civil rights legislation. The anti-communist bona fides of President Richard Nixon were well established before he opened relations with China.
This brings us to former Illinois Governor George Ryan. Ryan, a staunch Republican, has voted for every piece of death penalty legislation that he could get his hands on during his career while in the Illinois State Legislature. But in his last week of office, Ryan did something amazing: he demonstrated a political act of courage.
Ryan issued a "blanket commutation" to almost all of the 156 inmates on the state's death row. Though Ryan was not the first governor to know that there were severe flaws with the administration of Illinois' death penalty, he was the first to take serious action.
On Friday January 11, Ryan pardoned for four death row inmates that he believed were tortured into confessing to crimes they did not commit. Capital punishment in Illinois came under the microscope after a group of journalism students at Northwestern University began looking into the case of Anthony Porter in the late 1990's. The students, working with their professor and a private investigator, found evidence that cleared Porter after 17 years on death row.
Ultimately, 13 inmates who had been sentenced to death were exonerated, and Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in the state. Soon after Ryan appointed a panel that concluded that Illinois had applied capital punishment too often since it was reestablished in 1977. Not everyone shares my acclamation of George Ryan, the Washington Times referred to Ryan's acts as "disgraceful," and Illinois' new Democratic governor, Rod Blagojevich, suggested the departing governor made a "big mistake." And conservative writers across the nation have portrayed Ryan just below Judas Iscariot.
In their January 16 editorial, the Washington Times wrote in horrific detail the murder of Debbie Evans. In November 1995 Jacqueline Williams and Fedell Caffey murdered Ms. Evans, who was pregnant at the time, in her suburban Chicago apartment. As she lay dying, they tore the baby, who survived, from her womb. They also killed her10 year old daughter and 8-year-old son. Williams and Caffey were among those whose sentences were commuted to life without parole.
Here is the rub, when discussing individual acts of grisly detail such as the aforementioned case; it is difficult to have compassion for the assailant of such acts. I doubt seriously that any rational human being who opposes the death penalty wants the likes of Williams and Caffey back on the streets. But the death penalty is not a series of isolated cases of gruesome detail it is a public policy.
Why is it that the overwhelming majority of people on death row are poor, illiterate, who utilize the services of a public defender? Is it because the well to do, intelligent, who can afford their own attorneys do not commit such crimes? Or is it because that death penalty policy as it is administered is reserved only for the poor?
If Illinois has experienced innocent people on death row, is it possible that there were other innocent individuals who were actually executed? Is the possibly of executing innocent people merely the cost of doing business as it relates to death penalty public policy?
What about those states that execute individuals at a much higher rate Texas, Louisiana, and Virginia in particular? If they dared to conduct an investigation of their death penalty practices what would the findings reveal?
These questions are difficult to answer because there is not the will or political courage to ask. George Ryan not only had the courage to ask the questions he took actions to answer them.