Crime & Law
Former Death Row Inmates on the Complicated Legacy of Late Illinois Gov. George Ryan
Funeral services were held Thursday for former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who died last week at age 91.
The single-term Republican leaves behind a complicated history. He spent five years in federal prison after being convicted of racketeering, bribery, extortion, money laundering and tax fraud for actions during his term as secretary of state.
However, while in the governor’s mansion, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 men on Illinois’ death row in 2003.
One of those men was Illinois Prison Project Director of Education Renaldo Hudson, who attended Ryan’s memorial Thursday in Kankakee.
“I had these mixed kind of feelings about Gov. Ryan, and, I’ll be honest with you, today, it’s like it landed with me the weight of the decision that he made, if that makes sense?” Hudson said. “When I was in the midst of my own stuff, like you can have what’s called tunnel vision. And so I have to admit that I was wallowing in that, and when I sat there and listened to his heart being shared through the people that was the closest to him, I really melted. You know the yesterday began to melt away.”
Also in attendance at Ryan’s services Thursday was Stanley Howard, who was one of four inmates on death row Ryan pardoned in 2003. But due to a separate conviction, Howard wasn’t released from prison until November 2023.
“I should’ve went home that particular day also, but instead, I stayed another 20 years in prison. It was horrible,” said Hudson, who is also a co-author of the book “Tortured By Blue: The Chicago Police Torture Story.” “It was horrible. I’m glad that Gov. Ryan took the action that he took, because he not only saved my life, but he also saved a lot of lives that was also really in jeopardy of facing, what I call ‘legal lynching’ today.”
Ryan’s move in 2003 to empty the state’s death row with pardons and commutations eventually led to a moratorium and abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, which was officially abolished in 2011 by former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.
