Supreme Court backs ex-governor’s commutation of death sentences

THE Illinois Supreme Court ruled yesterday that former Governor George Ryan had the power to commute the sentences of every Illinois death row inmate before he left office last year.

The Republican governor commuted the sentences of 167 inmates and pardoned four others, acting three years after he temporarily halted all executions in Illinois.

The state attorney general challenged Mr Ryan’s constitutional authority in 32 of the cases, arguing that 21 of the inmates hadn’t sought clemency as required by state law and 14 didn’t have death sentences at the time because their cases were being appealed. Three inmates fell into both categories.

The Supreme Court justices said that a governor’s pardon power is essentially unreviewable.

“We believe that the grant of authority given the governor ... is sufficiently broad to allow former Governor Ryan to do what he did,” Justice Bob Thomas wrote for the majority.

No dissents were filed, though the justices added that they felt pardons and commutations should be handled individually, rather than in the mass fashion Mr Ryan used when he cleared death row.

Mr Ryan issued the moratorium on executions in Illinois after it was discovered that 13 death row inmates had been wrongly convicted, prompting fears that a flawed criminal justice system could lead to others unjustly being condemned.

State lawmakers approved a package of bills last spring designed to reform the death penalty system and reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions, and Governor Rod Blagojevich has declared the state’s death penalty reforms complete, though he said he would wait to see how the reforms affected future trials before officially lifting the execution moratorium.