Supreme Court refuses to hear former Ill. Gov. Ryan's appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Tuesday to consider former Gov. George Ryan's appeal of his racketeering and fraud conviction, ending his long legal battle and leaving the prospect that President Bush might eventually commute his 61/2-year sentence as his last best hope.
The justices made no comment as they refused to take up the 74-year-old former governor's claim that he had not received a fair trial due to chaotic jury deliberations.
(AP)
Chicago's top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said he was happy the high court decided to let Ryan's conviction stand.
''Mr. Ryan has exhausted every legal avenue and argument afforded him but the verdict stands that he was guilty of corrupting the highest office in the state,'' Fitzgerald said in a statement.
Ryan's chief defense attorney, former Gov. James R. Thompson, planned an afternoon news conference.
Ryan was convicted in April 2006 of steering contracts to lobbyists and other friends, tax fraud, misuse of tax dollars and state workers and squelching an investigation of links between bribery and fundraising.
His 37-page petition to the Supreme Court claimed his chances of getting a fair trial were wrecked when U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer replaced two jurors with alternates after deliberations were well under way. The two jurors were removed for failing to mention of their police records on a pre-trial questionnaire.
Ryan's lawyers also argued the deliberations were tainted after one of the jurors, a substitute kindergarten teacher, brought legal materials she found on the Internet into the jury room in defiance of instructions.
Most of the corrupt activity charged in Ryan's indictment took place when the husky voiced, snowy haired onetime Kankakee pharmacist was Illinois secretary of state before his 1998 election as governor. Also convicted at the trial was businessman Larry Warner, who received leases for himself and clients from the secretary of state's office when Ryan was in charge.
Ryan and Warner filed a joint appeal with the Supreme Court and the high court in refusing to hear Ryan's refused to hear Warner's as well.
The former governor is serving the 61/2-year sentence imposed by Pallmeyer at the correctional center at Terre Haute, Ind.
Under federal law Ryan can get 15 percent of the sentence off for good behavior. His best hope of getting out before then would be if President Bush would commute his sentence -- something the president already has done for I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.
Libby was sentenced to five years for lying to a federal grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA officer.
Presidents traditionally issue a few pardons and commute some sentences just before they leave office and a successor is inaugurated.
A former federal prosecutor who represented the government at the Ryan trial said commuting the former governor's sentence would be a mistake.
''When defendants are charged and they are convicted by overwhelming evidence and it is in the context where the public trust was manipulated and violated then I think the conviction should stand,'' said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon, who is now in private practice.
Patrick M. Collins, the former federal prosecutor who led the Ryan investigation for eight years, praised the Supreme Court's action.
''This means the long legal saga is over and, importantly, it also means that the jury's decision and Judge Pallmeyer's handling of the trial has been vindicated and hopefully the conclusion of the proceeding will lead to deterrence for future conduct,'' Collins said.
There is no way to tell what Bush might decide about commuting Ryan's sentence but few if any doubt that he will be asked to do so.
Thompson still has influence in Republican politics and is certain to mobilize his network of lawyers, lobbyists and lawmakers in the cause.
One expert, Loyola University political scientist Alan R. Gitelson, said estimated the chances of a commutation at 50-50.
''If (Bush) commutes it, it will be on the grounds of (Ryan's) age and his health,'' Gitelson said. ''Unlike Libby, it will be a humanitarian act.''
The high court did not reject Ryan's claim that his trial was unfair. It refused to grant certiorari to the former governor's appeal. That is, it refused even to consider it.