You’re right. The connection is tenuous at best. But it’s one of the rare cases where government corruption has a connection to an out-and-out tragedy, so the children’s deaths have become something of a symbol and a rallying cry. Ryan didn’t just betray the voters in some abstract way, the argument goes, he endangered the public and contributed to the deaths of these children.
I understand the impulse to point to the deaths as a concrete example of the impact of government corruption, but it’s not entirely fair. Besides, Ryan did plenty of other things for which he bears direct responsibility. He basically turned state government into a subsidiary of Citizens for Ryan and he shut down any investigations by honest underlings. There’s no reason whatsoever that he should be released from prison early.
Before Ryan became governor, he was Illinois secretary of state and oversaw drivers licenses. The secretary of state’s office had an inspector general and internal investigators who were supposed to take action against corrupt employees. It was this unit that Ryan gutted. I don’t know of any State Police involvement, but it’s possible there was some connection that I’m forgetting.
The lede: A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted Dean Bauer, the main anti-corruption official for George Ryan when he was secretary of state, on charges of racketeering and obstruction of justice, accusing him of repeatedly covering up misconduct to protect his old friend Ryan from “personal and political embarrassment.”
Nitpick Illinois Secretary of State Police /Nitpick
The SoS handles all vehicle/drivers licenses, the SoS Police are an enforcement arm for commercial transportation and special investigations and so forth.
Ryan should spend every second of that sentence in jail, the no good prick. Gov. Blowdryer of the enormous tollway signs is, as sarafeena rightly points out propping up early release because as Public Official A he’s got the next bus ticket to the Gray Bar B&B.
He should feel shame, but not for being in prison. He should be deeply ashamed for what he did, but I’ve never seen one iota of an inkling that that idea has even crossed his mind. Every statement from him is about how shameful it is for him to be in prison. Well, poor, poor him. If he hadn’t stalled things for so long, Lura Lynn would have been younger while he was doing time.
I chaperoned a field trip for the grade school while he was governor and one of the stops was his office in Chicago. He wasn’t there (I think he was visiting Africa at the time) but his secretary was. She told us what a wonderful man he was and then she went on to say that he wasn’t like a lot of bosses who don’t really pay attention. She said he knew every single thing that went on under his watch; nothing happened without him knowing about it. I wanted to ask her, if that was the case, how come he kept claiming he didn’t know anything about licenses for bribes, but I didn’t want to start something in front of the kids.
I think he did it because he believed it was the Right Thing To Do, but I also don’t think it was all that tough a call or that it took that much courage.
One thing that kind of bugs me here. Seems to me that the only serious talk of pardons here are for REPUBLICANS. Ted Stevens, George Ryan, Scooter Libby. Are only corrupt republican offficials “decent people” who just made mistakes? There aren’t enough rolleyes in the world for this. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
And besides that, he had promised - after issuing the moratorium - that each case would be looked at separately on its own merits, due to the discovered incidents of police torture and other problems wrongly sentencing innocent people to death. Instead he waited until right before he left office and took the easy way out by commuting all of the sentences to life imprisonment, so someone else could do investigations. Meanwhile, families of loved ones who were murdered by someone who now isn’t going to be put to death got up in arms because all of those on Death Row were now off it, with no investigation, and some (understandably, though I personally do not support the death penalty) had felt some justice in the thought of execution that imprisonment, and blanket commutation, did not provide them.
I was merely pointing out that his actions made people mad on both sides of the issue. Both the people who agreed with the moratorium due to problems with innocent people going to Death Row, as well as the people who were wondering about the fate of the criminal who had (probably/possibly) killed their loved one, were angered at his lack of attention paid to the cases and his handwave of “OK, none of them get executed.”
There’s an article in the Tribune today that talks a little bit about how hard his daughter’s death was on him. This may answer your question, and speak to your comment about why he didn’t address it before the election.
I had forgotten about that. I don’t care that much for ol’ Dickie boy, but when your 40 year old daughter and mother of your grandchildren dies, you’ve really got other stuff on your mind. Perhaps the experience of that softened him enough to look at this pardon bit in a different light. Still, let Ryan rot.
They are all members of the club and take care of each other. It often seems to be at the expense of justice. He will be released when he is 79 because he was old when he got caught. So. Besides .he will get out early anyway. They will,determine he is not a threat and has had such good behavior.
That’s the thing. He really isn’t. Unless I’m mistaken, Ryan hasn’t never apologized to the citizens of Illinois for his crimes while in office. I’m a pretty forgiving guy, but not that forgiving. Let him serve his time, otherwise, this erodes just that much more faith us citizens have in the system.
I think there’s a very strong attitude of “that’s the way it works…everyone does it,” so the ones who get caught are pissed off more than anything. I remember years ago when they sent Rostenkowski to prison, hearing some adults say that they felt kind of sorry for him because he has to work within the machine, you can’t get anything done otherwise, blah blah blah. The thing is, all that is true, but it doesn’t make it right. And the ones who are caught up in it convince themselves that it IS right, or at least that they are blameless because they are just one cog in the whole thing. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if 90% of the local politicians have done stuff that they could be convicted for, but very few of them ever stand up to it and say that THEY are the one who’s going to play it clean.
A friend of mine who grew up in the city during the 50s & 60s says that if you wanted to get a pothole fixed on your street, you went to see the alderman with a pile of cash. It’s been working that way for a long time, and the only way to make it stop would be to get rid of all of them and start from scratch.
Oh, I definitely understand the above. It’s basically one giant feedback loop. I was involved in the defense (just as an assistant guy, nothing important, but was in court every day and knew the key players personally) of that patronage trial a few years back. I actually do feel bad for some of those guys (none of whom materially profited in any way from their actions), and I truly do feel some of the defendants were victims of an overzealous prosecution. I can say that were I in their position, I don’t think I would have acted much differently.
However, I just don’t feel that with the Ryan case. The guy was the highest ranking government executive in Illinois, blatantly took bribes in the form of money and vacations, ghost payrolled some of his family, and he’s never once shown an ounce of remorse for it.
He’s like a lot of people in prison - he’s really, really sorry that he has to go to prison. If there were anything he could to about it so he didn’t have to go to prison, he would do it, And he realizes now that he has to go to prison how wrong it was.