Gov. George Ryan, already scheduled to make a major address on the death penalty Friday, has added a second speech on Saturday, heightening expectations of capital punishment foes that he will commute some sentences or even pardon some prisoners before he leaves office Monday.
Ryan aides have been reaching out to attorneys and others working on behalf of a handful of Death Row prisoners, asking if the inmates would have a home and a job lined up if they were immediately set free.
That suggests that in addition to commuting death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the governor may also pardon some prisoners or cut their death sentences to time served.
Paul Ciolino, the private investigator who helped free Death Row inmate Anthony Porter in 1999, said a member of Ryan’s staff called him on Sunday.
“He said, `What’d happen if we pardon them?'” Ciolino said.
Ciolino said he has since given the governor’s office information about where inmates Madison Hobley, 42; Aaron Patterson, 38; and Mario Flores, 37; among others, would live and work if they are released. All three are from Chicago.
Ryan, who is speaking at noon Friday at DePaul University College of Law, has added a speech at 1 p.m. Saturday at Northwestern University School of Law, according to Ryan spokesman Dennis Culloton.
Both sites are significant.
Lawyers at Northwestern and its Center on Wrongful Convictions have been among the strongest supporters of commutations for all Death Row inmates, an issue Ryan has struggled with since he said early last year he was considering such a move.
Death penalty opponents hope the DePaul site points to a possible pardon for Hobley, who was convicted of killing seven people, including his wife and infant son, in a 1987 arson. Attorney Andrea Lyon, who represents Hobley, heads DePaul’s death penalty center.
Culloton said the governor is continuing to weigh his options. He said the addition of the Northwestern date was to accommodate all that Ryan wants to say about an issue the governor has been studying for three years.
“It’s obviously been of intense interest to the public and [the governor] wants to provide enough time to share his findings in some depth,” Culloton said. “So he’ll have two speeches that he’ll be giving to wrap up this effort.”
Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in January 2000 and appointed a commission to study the death penalty after 13 condemned prisoners were exonerated.
Culloton said the governor has been reviewing each Death Row case “and he is going to do his level best to act in the interest of fairness and justice.”
Hobley has maintained his innocence in the South Side apartment building fire. The case, which was handled by detectives working for former Cmdr. Jon Burge, has come under scrutiny for problems with the evidence and allegations the detectives tortured Hobley.
Burge was fired in 1993 for torturing convicted cop-killer Andrew Wilson, and a special prosecutor was named last year to investigate the dozens of allegations of torture against Burge’s officers at their South Side police station.
Patterson was convicted of a 1986 South Chicago double murder. Burge’s detectives also handled that case, and Patterson has long alleged he was tortured. A Tribune investigation in 1998 detailed extensive problems with the evidence in the case.
Flores, a former high school diving champion, was convicted of the 1984 murder of a 21-year-old man on the North Side in what police said was a gang dispute.
Prosecutors, who opposed commutations during the clemency hearings, are studying their options, although they acknowledge the governor has broad clemency powers under the Illinois Constitution.
John Gorman, a spokesman for Cook County State’s Atty. Richard Devine, said prosecutors were “bracing themselves” for Ryan’s decision.
“Depending on what he says and what he does, we’d have to look at the law and take a look at the case and then study all of our options,” he said.
Prosecutors, in particular, have focused on those cases in which inmates did not file and sign a clemency petition. State law requires that inmates sign their petition, but about a dozen of the roughly 160 prisoners on Death Row did not.
Dan Curry, spokesman for outgoing Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan, said attorneys in that office also were waiting to see what the governor does.
“Unless there’s some twist that’s unforeseen, we know he has broad powers to grant clemency,” Curry said. “We’re certainly not poised to go to court or something. But we have to see what he does.”
