Clemency at issue for Ryan trial;
Death penalty actions not relevant, U.S. says

By Matt O'Connor
Chicago Tribune
June 18, 2005

Federal prosecutors on Friday moved to block former Gov. George Ryan's lawyers from touting his anti-death penalty efforts at his trial, suggesting that Ryan's stand was designed to counteract his impending indictment.

The government contends Ryan's moratorium on capital punishment and blanket clemency of more than 160 Death Row inmates are irrelevant to the charges against him and thus should be inadmissible at trial.

After Ryan's indictment in late 2003, his lawyer, Dan K. Webb, said he intended to tell the jury of the governor's effort to "fix a broken-down death penalty system." He called Ryan's actions "acts of courage which I believe speak the true mark of this man."

But prosecutors pointed out that Ryan's Death Row commutation in his final days in office came after federal investigators had questioned him four times about the corruption allegations.

Ryan "had good reason to engage in what could be perceived as good (or `courageous') acts," the government filing said.

If Ryan is allowed to claim his decision was a courageous one, prosecutors argued, they should be able to tell jurors of how Ryan has reaped financial benefits from his death-penalty decisions, collecting speaking fees as he travels to lecture on the subject and soliciting anti-death penalty supporters for contributions to his legal defense fund.

The indictment accuses Ryan of corruption spanning more than a decade and alleges he and his family received illegal cash payments, gifts and vacations from friends and cronies in return for steering state business to them.

He is scheduled to go on trial on Sept. 15 with Lawrence Warner, who was a key member of Ryan's "kitchen cabinet" of advisers and is alleged to have pocketed about $3 million in the scheme.

In their filing, prosecutors note that much of the wrongdoing charged against Ryan allegedly took place during his two terms as secretary of state, a post that has no connection to the death-penalty issue.

At some length, the government explained in its filing how Ryan's historic death-penalty decisions as governor came as the federal Operation Safe Road probe reached into his inner circle.

If Ryan is permitted to tout his commutation as an act of courage, prosecutors said, jurors should "know of the speaking fees that Ryan has collected and put in his bank account as he travels about lecturing on the subject of the death penalty."

Prosecutors also took to task Webb's pronouncement that Ryan's actions on the death penalty would influence jurors to acquit him of the corruption charges. That "raises the question of whether Ryan's death penalty decisions, far from being courageous, constituted an attempt to influence the jury pool."

"If the court permits the opening of this evidentiary door, then the government will be entitled in fairness to present to the jury the other--less admirable--explanation for Ryan's conduct," the government said.

Prosecutors also fretted that introducing a subject as emotionally charged as the death penalty would distract jurors from "the real issues in the case."

Ryan's lawyers also filed several motions Friday, seeking to bar media access to a crucial stage of jury selection and pushing for the sentencing of six key government witnesses before trial to relieve pressure on them to toe the government line in their testimony.

"Witnesses so compromised threaten the integrity of the judicial system," the defense filing said.

Ryan's lawyers moved to bar reporters from attending the questioning of prospective jurors individually during the selection process. Would-be jurors may be less candid in responding to sensitive questions if they fear their answers and identity would be widely publicized, they argued.

Too alleviate that concern, the defense proposed that transcripts of that part of the jury selection be released to the media with the identities of the prospective jurors concealed.

The defense proposed that the identity of the prospective jurors be concealed from the public and that transcripts of the questioning would then be released to the media.

Ryan's lawyers also attacked the delay in the sentencing of the six key government witnesses, including star witness Scott Fawell, Ryan's former right-hand man who agreed to cooperate in a bid to win leniency for his fiancee, co-defendant Alexandra Coutretsis.

"The only reason for this delay is to maximize pressure, and that has the impact of making his testimony even more unreliable," the defense filing said.

Lawyers for Ryan and Warner also sought to bar the jury from having the government's indictment with them during deliberations, calling the charges "one-sided" and "highly biased."

In another motion, Ryan's lawyers proposed that testimony be heard only between 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays "to minimize the burden" on jurors in a trial that could last four to six months.

In recent days, the prosecution and defense submitted a proposed questionnaire for prospective jurors to fill out, but numerous disagreements must be resolved by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer.

"Would you agree or disagree with the opinion that many politicians are corrupt?" said one question proposed by the defense.

Apparently, the defense wants to adopt a California-style schedule for trying the case, working only in the morning.

I have two questions, the first one is rhetorical:

(1)How does working only half a day and dragging out jury service for weeks and months "lessen the burden" on those poor saps who get picked; and

(2) With the exception of capital cases, what is the longest trial that any of you in this august group have tried? I have trouble conceiving of any trial that takes more than maybe two weeks, tops (this is assuming working a "Texas" schedule of full days and maybe past 5:00 on some days).

In Penry III (capital punishment only), we had a two week competency trial, took a week off, took about 3 weeks on individual voir dire to pick the jury, and then had a four week trial on the merits. It was torture.

We worked 9:00 to 5:00 most days, went longer on some, and even worked a Saturday or two if memory serves.

Yes, Lee you guys did work at least one Saturday, and I'll remind you, that it rained on that particular Saturday -- I got half way across the parking lot, soaked, and the judge had the bailiff call me back to the courtroom, re-soaked. Then went and played a band job that night, un-soaked and very few tips, I might add.

15 day murder case, both sides had extensive case in chief and rebuttal evidence. The State had an extensive punishment case. Jury was out about 1 day for guilt and about 2 hours to give a 17 year old killer life.

In meeting various prosecutors from various offices in California, Washington and Oregon while attending the National Advocacy Center over the past 7 years, in those areas where the murder trials we in Texas would try in one or two weeks stretch into months and months, the common factor seems to be working just "part time" on the murder case and transacting the Court's business otherwise.

Most prosecutors from other State's jurisdictions that I have met are highly envious of Texas and our system of justice. My classmates called me "the lucky guy"!

By MIKE ROBINSON
Associated Press

CHICAGO Former Gov. George Ryan, who drew international praise when he commuted the sentences of everyone on Illinois' death row, was convicted of racketeering and fraud today in a corruption scandal that ended his political career in 2003.

Cool that it only took 7 or 8 months to try the case to verdict. That would qualify as a "career" case.

I had a nine man drug conspiracy case with five defense attorneys involving a mexican cocaine cartel (lots of translators) that lasted 4 weeks. I also had a sexual assault of a child case that lasted almost five weeks but that was the Judges doing. He allowed the defense to "reserve cross" until after the state rested and he allowed the defense a competency exam in the middle of the trial.

I wasn't the prosecutor--just on the venire panel. It was circa 1979 in West Texas (small town, multi-county district court) and the case was a second degree murder case involving a man who decided that the best defense (to his extremely violent girlfriend) was a good offense. He walked into a local members-only club (dry county) and blew her away in front of about 100 witnesses. It began with jury selection at 9:00 am on a Tuesday. The judge informed the potential jurors that he expected the case to be tried and verdict rendered by 5:00 pm the next day because he had court in a different county on Thursday! And by golly, the jury convicted him and gave him five years by 4:00 pm. Wednesday! (I wasn't a juror--they sat the jury before they reached me).

Janette Ansolabehere

George Ryan is still a hero to death penalty foes

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Tuesday, Apr. 18 2006

During former Gov. George Ryan's corruption trial, the court denied defense attempts to bring up his anti-death-penalty crusade, saying the capital punishment issue was irrelevant to the corruption charges.

Now that the trial is over, anti-death-penalty activists around the nation are comforting themselves with the same notion: That Ryan's conviction for selling out Illinois government to friends and cronies is irrelevant to his stature in the capital punishment debate.

"He is seen as the governor who shined public light on the problem with the state's death penalty system. No one had done that before in the comprehensive manner in which he did it," said David Elliot of the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty in Washington.

As for Ryan's conviction on Monday, Elliot said: "He did all kinds of things in office that had nothing to do with the death penalty. It's apples and oranges."

Ryan, a Republican and one-time death penalty supporter, shifted positions during his term as governor, after revelations that 13 men had been wrongly condemned to die in Illinois. Ryan imposed a freeze on all executions in the
state and, on his way out of office in 2003, cleared Illinois' death row, pardoning four inmates and commuting to life in prison the death sentences of 163 others.

The move was widely viewed as the single biggest blow to American capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court's temporary halt of all U.S. executions in the 1970s.

While Ryan was hailed by activists around the world, closer to home his move was viewed with far less adoration.

The ever-widening license-for-bribes scandal during his one term as governor drove his approval ratings so low that he opted not to run for second term.

"He's being persecuted"

People on both sides of the capital punishment debate suggest that the corruption charges and Ryan's death penalty activism were linked - though the theories go in two very different directions.

"In my opinion, he's being persecuted for his death penalty work by the pro-death-penalty (U.S.) Justice Department," said Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, who has repeatedly nominated Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize for his death penalty stance. "He would not have been indicted if not for his death penalty work."

Boyle's most startling claim involves what is generally assumed to be a numeric coincidence in the case: Ryan took 167 condemned inmates off death row in January 2003. Eleven months later, the U.S. attorney's office handed down its
corruption indictment against Ryan, alleging he and family members received $167,000 in cash and benefits in exchange for state contracts.

"They alleged $167,000 - no more, no less," said Boyle, noting the figure precisely invokes the number 167, which is how many people Ryan removed from death row. "That was no coincidence. That was clearly designed to send a
message (from prosecutors) to Ryan and the abolition movement: 'This is the price you pay'" for anti-death-penalty activism.

That theory, for which Boyle offers no evidence, didn't make it into the trial.

Like all issues related to the death penalty, it was barred from testimony by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer as irrelevant to the corruption charges.

Pro-death-penalty advocates like state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, a former Madison County state's attorney, allege it was Ryan who attempted to link the capital punishment debate with the corruption charges - by climbing on board a high-minded crusade as federal investigators closed in.

"He was going to build himself up as a paragon of virtue . . . to make himself unassailable in a court of law" by emptying death row and softening his gruff image with the public, said Haine. "For anybody in the anti-death-penalty
movement to suggest that (the corruption trial) is a payback is offensive in the extreme."

Eleven days: full days, mind you.

How about this: shortest time in capital voir dire? Again, for me....eleven days!

Illinois Gov. Blagojevich, chief of staff, arrested

By Jeff Coen, David Kidwell and Monique Garcia

Chicago Tribune

December 9, 2008

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents on federal corruption charges Tuesday morning.

Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to Frank Bochte of the FBI. Both were awakened in their residences and transported to FBI headquarters in Chicago.

In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himseld as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.

Another charge alleges Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of him in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.

Blagojevich and Harris, along with others, obtained and sought to gain financial benefits for the governor, members of his family and his campaign fund in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state jobs and state contracts, according to the charges.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement.

For more, read on: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-rod-blagojevich-1209,0,7997804.story

I lived in Chicago when Blagojevich was elected, and I have to say I'm not surprised a bit. Well, a little surprised that he's getting prosecuted, but not that he did the things to get him prosecuted.

Are things out that way really any better than when the likes of Al Capone ran around? Corruption in Illinois seem rife and unstemmable.

JAS

Today, December 9, the day Gov Blogovisoauajzqych and his aide were arrested, happens to be International Anti-Corruption Day.

Man, this stuff just writes itself!

So, the rest of the year corruption is A-OK!