Durbin to ask Bush to commute Ryan sentence

'A HUMAN MOTIVE' | Durbin asks President Bush to commute Ryan's sentence

Sen. Dick Durbin said Monday he was willing to face "overwhelmingly negative" public outcry and push for former Gov. George Ryan's early release from prison because of the plea of one woman: Ryan's wife Lura Lynn.

"Oh my goodness," Lura Lynn Ryan said after learning the news from the Sun-Times. "God bless his heart."

Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said it was "a human motive" -- Lura Lynn Ryan's personal pleas to him -- that pushed him to ask President Bush to commute Ryan's sentence. Ryan has served one year of his 6½-year sentence.

In a letter to the president, Durbin cites the former first lady's "frail health" and her age. Both George Ryan and his wife are 74.

"Justice is a sword tempered by compassion," Durbin wrote.

That immediately raised questions over why Ryan should get a break that other inmates of advanced age have not.

"I would speak out for justice in any case brought to my attention," Durbin said.

Durbin couldn't recall writing a president asking him to step into a case.

The former lead prosecutor in Ryan's trial, Patrick Collins, said a commutation is supposed to be an extraordinary measure in an extraordinary circumstance.

"To me, what is extraordinary is his defiance," Collins said, citing Lura Lynn Ryan's comments to the Sun-Times last week. She said if her husband had to do it over, "he would govern the same way as he did before."

Collins said the severity of Ryan's crime and lack of remorse were reasons he should serve out his sentence.

"This state of all states doesn't need the message that commutation might send," Collins said.

A commutation, instead of a pardon, would be an act of compassion, Durbin said, while still not cleaning the slate for Ryan's crimes.

"It would mean that would be a shadow over the rest of his life, as I believe it should be," Durbin said.

The former GOP governor was convicted in 2006 in a racketeering fraud scheme that included his efforts as secretary of state to quash a probe into a crash that killed six children of the Willis family in 1994. Durbin called on Ryan to apologize to the public and to the Willises.

A lawyer for the Rev. Scott and Janet Willis said the couple opposes any leniency for Ryan.

"There has not been one single expression of remorse in any way," said attorney Joe Power. "They're very much opposed to any type of pardon or commutation, especially in light of what George Ryan's wife quotes him as saying, that he has a clear conscience and would do the same things over again. I mean that's absurd."

Of Ryan's perceived lack of remorse, Durbin pointed to an excerpt of Ryan's petition to Bush in which Ryan expresses "a deep shame for me in serving this 78-month sentence resulting from my public corruption conviction."

"My failings have brought humiliation upon my family, cost me my reputation and name, brought financial ruin to me and my wife, and worst of all, caused me to be away from Lura Lynn when, in our twilight years, she needs me most," Ryan wrote.

Contributing: Dave McKinney