A thin-skinned politician generally doesn’t last too long. And after more than thirty years as an elected official, I had learned that sometimes you have to endure some things in quiet stoicism. But we are all human and there are times when the emotion of the moment gets the better of us. That happened to me in early May.
On May 10, I fulfilled a promise by meeting with Northwestern journalism professor Dave Protess and his students, some of whom had worked on the Anthony Porter case. I think they were a little stunned when I arrived by helicopter, touching down on the southern edge of campus near Fisk Hall, the school’s journalism building. But in a state as large as Illinois, I spent a lot of time in planes and cars and yes, a helicopter, hopscotching from here to there and back again.
The students were smart and inquisitive, as you would expect them to be at an institution like Northwestern University. They wanted to know why I waited nearly a year after Anthony Porter’s release to declare the moratorium and, of course, they wanted to hear my view on the death penalty.
“I don't think an execution will ever happen again while I’m governor,” I said. “I’d rather err on that side.” I also repeated my support for the death penalty for heinous crimes. At the same time, I said the Death Penalty Moratorium Commission had to confront issues such as tortured confessions, jailhouse informants, and prosecutorial misconduct in determining what recommendations to make.
“But I may never be satisfied with what they come up with,” I said. “I'm not sure that anybody can come back and say, for a fact, that the death penalty provisions have been fixed.”
Asked about my interactions with George Bush when he campaigned in Illinois, I told them that George expressed confidence that no innocent person had been executed during his watch. “George told me he’s confident of the system he has in place in Texas and that it works well,” I told the students. “Now, I thought our system was okay too. But I never spent a lot of time looking at it. Maybe you can find a case that will make him think twice about what he is doing.”
Well, the headlines that came out of this off-the-cuff session raised some eyebrows. The Bloomington Pantagraph, relying upon an Associated Press wire story, declared: “Ryan says death penalty is needed.” The Chicago Sun-Times headline read: “Ryan open to end of death penalty.” The Chicago Tribune reported: “Ryan virtually shuts door on executions.”
This was something I would run into over and over again—the media were trying to discern from each and every syllable that came out of my mouth exactly what I was going to do. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do, let alone tell them. But that didn’t stop them from trying to read the tea leaves or studying my words like an archaeologist poring over a potsherd. The Tribune, which was pushing on this issue because of how its reporting had influenced my decision to impose the moratorium, said my comments were “the strongest to date” on the death penalty.
But the initial reports sent reporters scurrying after me, apparently in the hope that I would issue some sort of death penalty edict that would give them a big scoop. They were after me that night at a Republican fund-raising dinner. I tried to be clear.
“What I said was unless this commission can show me the system is perfect, I won’t execute anybody and I don’t know if that will happen during my term, at least this term, as governor. I don’t know whether that will happen or not.”
The next day, during a two-hour town-hall style meeting at the University of Illinois in Chicago, I repeated that I would not feel comfortable approving an execution until I could be sure that the system had been fixed. The Chicago Tribune headline declared: “Ryan still noncommittal on ban for death penalty.”
I knew that it was pointless to argue. I remembered the old saying, supposedly first uttered by Frank Branigan, who would become governor of Indiana: “I never quarrel with a man who buys ink by the barrel.”
So, this was the background leading up to a meeting on Friday, May 12, 2000, in my office in Springfield with some members of the Illinois Conference of Churches. They had been seeking time with me to talk about the commission. And I knew that among them would be Reverend Demetri Kantzavelos from the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago, who had been Kokoraleis’s spiritual advisor in the days before the execution. Honestly, as a man of faith myself, I felt Reverend Kantzavelos had been particularly critical of me in his dealings with the media prior to and after the execution, notwithstanding that Kokoraleis said he had forgiven me.
As they filed into the office, I greeted each one with a handshake—Bishop Joseph Imesch, from the Catholic Diocese of Joliet; Reverend David Anderson, the executive director of the Conference of Churches; Peter Beckwith, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Springfield. And then came Reverend Kantzavelos.
“I want you to know,” I said, gripping his hand, “that you are lucky to be here. I did not want you here, but you are here and you need to know that you are just lucky to be here.”
We took seats at a conference table. They were there to discuss several issues, including welfare reform, health care, and the death penalty. At some point during the conversation, Reverend Kantzavelos said he had “a concern and a question. My concern is that while we are grateful for the declaration of the moratorium, some of us are haunted by the fact that you have called the moratorium after the execution of Andrew Kokoraleis.”
That ticked me off. It struck a nerve and, I confess, I lost my temper.
“That animal got everything he deserved,” I snapped. “He butchered a woman—Let me tell you something. I have always been in favor of the death penalty and I always will be. I reviewed everything and I have absolutely no remorse for what I did. I have no regrets. I read everything about his case. And let me tell you something else, I read all of your nasty letters.”
The fact is that I was torn in those days. My long-held belief in the death penalty was being challenged by the way the system was operating—more people exonerated than had been executed. It was as if I deliberately waited until after Kokoraleis was executed to declare the moratorium just so I could let the guy die on the gurney.
Reverend Kantzavelos seemed unphased. “My question, Mr. Governor, is with regard to the commission you have appointed. It seems that the majority of the members are from the legal profession. Do you have an intention of making the commission more inclusive and include representatives from the religious community, the medical community, ethicists, social services professionals, not to mention representatives from diverse minority groups?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Are there any more questions?”
Bishop Imesch had one.
“But, Governor, you were quoted in the media yesterday as saying that if the commission came back to you with the suggestion of abolition that you would support it.”
So, there it was.
“Your excellency,” I said. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers and more importantly, don’t believe everything you believe you have read.”
The meeting had turned south for everyone in the room and by then, the allotted time was up and everyone quietly filed out after we took a group photograph.
I was trying to grapple with what was turning out to be one of the most difficult issues of my entire life. I was trying to be honest about it. And I couldn’t help that the media were, in the pursuit of a story, going to push the envelope in a way that might influence the public one way or another.
Later, I learned that Kantzavelos complained to Bill Ryan, the head of the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project, that the commission was merely a “smokescreen.” And to Bill’s credit, he told Kantzavelos that he believed I was sincere when I halted executions and established the commission and that I did what I did because it was the right thing to do. Bill said he believed (rightly) that I had moved substantially from where I was when I allowed Kokoraleis’s execution to go forward. Bill told Kantzavelos that he understood that Kokoraleis had repented for his horrible crimes and was a changed man at the time of the execution. He urged Kantzavelos to consider the moratorium a memorial for Kokoraleis and to move past the execution.
“Let’s move on,” Bill told Kantzavelos. “Let’s not be like Pogo, who once said we have found the enemy and it is us.”
Days later, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Ike Easley, who had been convicted of helping beat and stab a superintendent to death at the Pontiac Correctional Center in 1987. The attack on Robert Taylor apparently was triggered by the death of an inmate, a gang member named Bill Jones, who died when he swallowed a plastic bag of cocaine when guards were moving him from one cell to another. Easley was convicted with two other inmates, Michael Johnson and David Carter, the gang members who ordered the killing. Unlike Easley, Johnson and Carter were sentenced to life in prison without parole. The Supreme Court rejected Easley’s claim that it was unfair that Carter and Johnson, who instigated the murder, should live and he should die. The court also rejected Easley’s contention that he had mental problems, which his defense lawyer had failed to fully develop—which, had they been, might have persuaded a jury to impose life instead of death.
Justice Freeman noted, “As this court’s opinion on direct review indicates, this was not a perfect trial. However, a defendant is entitled to a fair trial, not a perfect one.”
The same day, Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Catholic Diocese of Los Angeles publicly supported renewed efforts for a national moratorium on the death penalty in the states and in the federal system. Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, he mentioned “the courage of Illinois Governor George Ryan.” Mahony said he had written to California governor Gray Davis asking him to halt executions there. With a death row population of 565, California had the largest death row in the nation.
“Simply put, we believe that every life is sacred, every life is precious—even the life of one who has violated the rights of others by taking a life,” he declared. “Human dignity is not qualified by what we do. It cannot be earned or forfeited. Human dignity is the irrevocable character of each and every person.”
I felt as if I were on a roller coaster, emotionally and physically.