When convicted rapist Gary Dotson goes before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board with a plea to get out of jail, Gov. James Thompson will be waiting.
Thompson said Wednesday he would have a personal role in deciding whether Dotson remained in prison for violating terms of the commutation Thompson granted two years ago.
Dotson has been in Cook County Jail since Aug. 2, when his wife told police that he hit her, yanked their 6-month-old daughter through an open car window and threatened to kill the child.
The review board will hold a hearing on whether it should revoke Dotson`s parole because of his recent troubles with the law, and Thompson plans to be there.
”The board and I will decide whether that warrants a revocation of his commutation,” said Thompson, who defended his decision to commute Dotson`s 25- to 50-year sentence after Cathleen Crowell Webb recanted her testimony that Dotson had raped her. Thompson directed a review board hearing in May, 1985, that drew nationwide attention.
”I think I took the right decision at the time with the facts and circumstances that were before me,” Thompson said at a taping of ”Dateline 720,” which will go on the air at 10 p.m. Saturday on WGN-AM.
”The commutation was expressly conditioned on future good behavior,”
Thompson said. ”He has had his brushes with the law. They seem to stem from a problem with drinking.”
Dotson has been arrested five times since his commutation. In January, 1987, he was arrested once for leaving the scene of an accident and running a red light and once for driving while intoxicated.
