CHICAGO - As Illinois begins emptying its death row by order of the governor, opponents of capital punishment are setting their sights on wider reforms.

On Saturday, Mr. Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 condemned inmates - most to life in prison without parole.

"It's going to reinforce the emerging impression in the minds of the American public that the death penalty system is fundamentally flawed," said David Elliot, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Death-penalty supporters, however, say the order was made to deflect attention from a threatening political scandal.

Mr. Ryan leaves office Monday, the day before opening statements are expected in the racketeering trial of his former chief of staff Scott Fawell.

"As far as I'm concerned, the death penalty has never been the real issue. It's a smoke screen," said Jacqui White, upset that her sister's murderer will be allowed to live.

Sen. Peter Roskam, a Republican who proposed more modest death penalty changes, said the backlash could hold back reform.

"I don't think the public will understand why people who have committed vile, brutal crimes on children and women and men in Illinois will not get the ultimate punishment," Mr. Roskam said.

Anyone who opposes the death penalty for vicious killers has just as little respect for life as these killers. As far as Ryan's argument that several people have been found to be not guilty while on death row, doesn't this prove that the system DOES work?

To just let all these people, most of whom are guilty shows blatant disregard for the victims. Are any of these people going to be of any use to society in the future? Hardly! So why should society continue to feed and house them? They are nothing but a drain on society, most of them always have been, all of them always will be.

Kill them!

An interesting side note, on Fox & Friends this AM Ryan was first labled as a Democrat. Not surprising given his action, or that it was done to distract from his legal troubles.

MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/

Indictments poured in against Governor George H. Ryan's political committee and two of his former aides on April 2nd, 2002. A federal indictment accused former top aide Scott Fawell of diverting state employees to work on numerous campaigns on state time, shredding garbage bags full of campaign records, and thwarting an internal investigation of wrongdoing.

Scott Fawell, who was Ryan's longtime chief of staff and manager of his 1998 gubernatorial campaign, is facing charges of racketeering, theft of government funds, conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, two counts of mail fraud, and four counts of filing false tax returns. Authorities are claiming that as Ryan's chief of staff in the secretary of state's office, Fawell oversaw systematic corruption, accepting more than $10,000, several free vacations, and the services of a prostitute in return for awarding a contract to a former state legislator. He is also accused of awarding low-digit license plates to two political contributors.

The wide-ranging indictment alleges that Fawell basically dismantled the secretary of state's office in the mid-1990's to stop internal investigations that attempted to link license selling and improper Ryan campaign fundraising efforts in suburban licensing facilities located in Libertyville, Naperville, and McCook. A license was "sold" at the McCook location to Ricardo Guzman who was involved in a deadly crash that killed six children near Milwaukee.

The charges also allege that Fawell fired or reassigned several inspector general investigators to discourage the internal probes. In an internal memo, Fawell declared his intent to dismantle the inspector general's office partly to prevent investigations that would probe Ryan's campaign fundraising actions.

The Citizens for Ryan campaign committee was charged with wrongdoing as well. Prosecutors intend to seek the forfeiture of at least $1 million in ill-gotten funds from the committee. If the committee were convicted, the campaign fund could face fines of up to an additional $1.5 million.

According to the charges, widespread misuse of state employees took place in Ryan's campaign for secretary of state in 1994, his campaign for governor in 1998 and in the 1994 primary of an unnamed senator. Chicago Tribune sources identified her as Scott Fawell's mother, former state Senator Beverly Fawell. The sources also claim that the same workers were used in several state House races in 1996 and in a 1996 presidential primary campaign for U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R-Texas) whom Ryan supported. Fawell and Gramm, however were not accused of wrongdoing.

Ryan's campaign committee was also accused of destroying incriminating documents by shredding, burning, and discarding them. The wholesale destruction supposedly took place in secretary of state and campaign offices in Chicago and Springfield.

April 19, 2002

Ex-aide pleads guilty to mail fraud

CHICAGO (AP) _ Gov. George Ryan's former deputy chief of staff refused to say whether, in his cooperation with federal prosecutors, he will directly incriminate the governor. Richard Juliano says he is only promising to tell the truth.

Juliano pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Thursday and agreed to be a government witness in the racketeering prosecution of the governor's campaign fund and Juliano's one-time boss, former Ryan campaign manager and chief of staff Scott Fawell.

``I'm not going to get into what he has told the prosecutors,'' said James Montana, Juliano's defense attorney. ``All he is going to do is answer the questions that are asked of him and he's going to tell the truth.''

Juliano was deputy chief of staff for Ryan _ in both the secretary of state's and governor's offices _ and deputy chairman of Ryan's 1998 campaign for governor.

Prosecutors said Juliano faces a sentence of anywhere from probation to 30 months in prison, depending on his continuing cooperation, and on the discretion of the judge.

The charge against Juliano was included in a 10-count federal indictment returned April 2. The other defendants were the Citizens for Ryan campaign committee and Fawell.

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:DUAzL09A6UkC:www.beloitdailynews.com/402/2ill19.htm+chief+of+staff+Scott+Fawell&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Ryan stonewalls on new indictments
April 4, 2002

BY DAVE MCKINNEY, STEVE WARMBIR AND TIM NOVAK STAFF REPORTERS

Gov. Ryan angrily dodged nearly a dozen key questions Wednesday about indictments of his campaign fund and two former aides, refusing to say whether he has appeared before a federal grand jury or even whether he still accepts responsibility for corruption on his watch.

"I'm not commenting on the investigation in any way, shape or form," Ryan said during his first encounter with reporters since former chief of staff Scott Fawell, deputy campaign aide Richard Juliano and his $2.3 million campaign fund were indicted.

Ryan also delivered a scolding to the media for asking about a questionable $30,000 windfall that federal prosecutors say was split between the indicted aides and an unnamed individual, which the Sun-Times has identified as Ryan's daughter, Lynda Pignotti.

"More bad information from you folks. You don't know what you're talking about," the governor said.

Who's prosecuting Fawell?

Hmm? Here's an article today on the Chicago Tribune:

Interest high for trial of Fawell

Ryan is expected to figure heavily in ex-aide's case

"There have been a lot of big cases over the years, but I don't recall anything this pervasive," said Jim Burns, former U.S. attorney now in charge of rooting out corruption for Ryan's successor in the secretary of state's office, Jesse White. "It was a massive political operation run out of a government office."

< snip >

The government prosecutors are Patrick Collins, who has led the Operation Safe Road probe from its start; Zachary Fardon, soon to be the No. 2 prosecutor in his native Nashville; and Joel Levin, a federal prosecutor for more than 20 years in Milwaukee, San Francisco and Chicago.

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