George H. Ryan, the former governor of Illinois who sparked nationwide discussion on capital punishment by instituting a halt on executions in 2000 and later served prison time for corruption related to his earlier tenure as Illinois secretary of state, passed away Friday at his residence in Kankakee, Illinois. He was 91.
His passing was confirmed by his son, George H. Ryan Jr.
Ryan, a moderate Republican who had historically supported the death penalty like many Americans, justified his suspension of executions on January 31, 2000, by highlighting the ‘‘shameless record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row.’’ He described his decision as an act of conscience.
Just over a year into his single four-year term, Ryan pointed out that since Illinois reinstated capital punishment in 1977, the system was plagued by serious errors. Among 25 individuals sentenced to death during that time, 12 were executed, while 13 were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.
‘‘I cannot support a system that in its administration is so riddled with mistakes and that has come dangerously close to the ultimate nightmare — the execution of innocent people,’’ he stated.
He further asserted, ‘‘Until I can be morally certain that no innocent person faces lethal injection, no executions will take place in Illinois.’’
The moratorium was welcomed by capital punishment opponents who pointed to frequent wrongful convictions in the U.S., often affected by racial bias, poverty, inadequate legal defense, and misconduct by law enforcement or prosecutors. Studies have indicated that 70 percent of thoroughly reviewed death penalty cases contain reversible errors.
However, Ryan's sweeping commutation faced criticism from conservative law-and-order advocates as well as victims’ families, who viewed the moratorium as an unjust reprieve granted by a governor overriding judicial rulings.
Ryan maintained that his moratorium was grounded in conscience and statistical evidence showing that individuals on Illinois’ death row, guilty or not, were at imminent risk of execution. His stance drew media attention, especially in contrast with fellow Republican Governor George W. Bush of Texas, who oversaw 135 executions during his five years in office and was then campaigning for president.
While not the first to commute death sentences, Ryan’s actions were unprecedented in scale. Previous governors who opposed the death penalty had commuted sentences but none on the level of Ryan’s mass commutation.
He established a blue-ribbon commission to review wrongful conviction cases, which uncovered inadequate defense attorneys, judicial oversights, and inconsistent death penalty laws needing reform. The commission recommended measures such as banning death sentences for the mentally disabled and prohibiting capital punishment based solely on jailhouse informant testimony or single eyewitness accounts.
Ryan chose not to run for re-election in 2002 amid investigations into corruption involving former aides from his tenure as secretary of state.
Near the end of his term, Ryan pardoned four death-row inmates cleared by new evidence and commuted the sentences of all 167 remaining death-row prisoners to life imprisonment — the largest such commutation in U.S. history — effectively emptying Illinois’ death row.
He announced this decision during a speech at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago.
Quoting Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Ryan said, ‘‘I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.’’ He added, ‘‘The legislature has failed to reform it, lawmakers won’t repeal it, but I cannot stand by any longer. Our capital punishment system is haunted by errors in determining guilt and in deciding who among the guilty deserves to die.’’
Ryan’s stand against the death penalty earned praise from global figures such as Pope John Paul II, South African leaders Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Nonetheless, Ryan’s career was overshadowed by a federal corruption probe called ‘‘Operation Safe Road,’’ which exposed illegal sales of state contracts, leases, and licenses linked to unsafe trucking operations, implicating dozens of Ryan’s former subordinates and associates.
In 2004, Ryan himself was indicted for accepting $167,000 in bribes, vacations, and gifts for himself and his family. Convicted in 2006 on 18 counts of fraud and racketeering, he was sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison, mostly served at Terre Haute, Indiana. He was temporarily released in 2011 to visit his wife during her final days.
Reflecting on Ryan’s complex legacy, Scott Turow, a lawyer and member of Ryan’s death penalty review commission, remarked, ‘‘Who was George Ryan? It’s a question that belongs in a Shakespearean drama.’’
Born February 24, 1934, in Maquoketa, Iowa, Ryan was the youngest of three children. His family later settled in Kankakee, Illinois, where he worked in his father’s pharmacy, played high school sports, and earned a pharmacy degree from Ferris State College in Michigan.
Ryan’s political career began on the Kankakee County Board before serving a decade in the Illinois House of Representatives, including leadership roles. He later held statewide offices as lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and finally governor from 1999 to 2003.
He won the 1998 gubernatorial race against Democrat Glenn Poshard with 51 percent of the vote.
As governor, Ryan undertook a $12 billion infrastructure overhaul and made history as the first sitting U.S. governor to visit Fidel Castro in Cuba. He also chaired the Midwestern Governors Association and supported George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign in Illinois.
Ryan married his high school sweetheart, Lura Lynn Lowe, in 1956. He is survived by his son, five daughters, 17 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren.
Illinois abolished the death penalty on March 9, 2011. At that time, the 15 remaining death-row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
No executions have taken place in Illinois since Ryan’s 2000 moratorium.
Ryan was unable to attend the death penalty repeal signing ceremony while still incarcerated. He was released on January 30, 2013, returning to his home in Kankakee, where he remained under house arrest until July of that year.
In 2020, Ryan co-authored a memoir titled "Until I Could Be Sure: How I Stopped the Death Penalty in Illinois," recounting his transformation from death penalty supporter to a key figure in its demise in the state.
