Former Gov. George Ryan threatened for months to extend blanket clemency to 167 death row inmates if Illinois' capital punishment system wasn't revamped. He was adamant in his repeated calls for change, but no one in the legislature seemed to take him seriously.

Perhaps lawmakers were distracted by the state's mounting budget deficit. Maybe their bids for re-election were too time consuming. Some might even have thought Ryan was bluffing.

Whatever the reasons, the Illinois General Assembly did nothing but give Ryan's pleas ear-play. An attempt was made in December to pass a watered-down version of the changes to the system Ryan wanted, but the effort failed -- and the legislature knew it would.

By sitting on their thumbs, legislators backed Ryan into a corner. He was too deeply immersed in the crusade to change the system, to leave office without acting. Lawmakers did not understand this or, even more ominous, did not understand the ramifications of their inaction.

Ryan is a man who desperately wants to rewrite his legacy from that of a scoundrel to a savior. Attacking the state's capital punishment system was, in his eyes, the means to that end.

Ryan was once a proponent of capital punishment, but converted to one of its staunchest opponents. With his tenure at its eleventh hour, Ryan purposely broke a system last week that most agreed was flawed, but repairable. It was a wake-up call for all of us. It did not have to come to this if the legislature had paid attention.

Ryan is now gone, but the problems with the system did not go with him. If anything, more questions have been raised because of Ryan's deed.

Should the governor have such broad discretion to commute or reverse death penalty sentences? Were some of the commutations illegal? Should the death penalty even be an option in Illinois?

Many of the same legislators who chose to ignore Ryan on the death penalty last year must now confront these issues. They must do so with expedience. The issue has festered too long.

In 2000, Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois. He appointed a blue-ribbon commission to study the system. The findings were chilling. Since 1977, 12 people had been executed in Illinois and 13 freed from death row after evidence proved their innocence. The report showed that people found guilty in rural areas are five times more likely to be sentenced to death than in urban courts. It told us that the majority of those on death row were minorities -- many of whom were convicted by all-white juries.

The commission recommended 85 reforms to the system. None, to date, has been adopted.

The problem now sits in the lap of the new legislature and Illinois' new governor, Rod Blagojevich. It is unlikely they will address the issues with Ryan's zeal, but something must be done. We can wait no longer.

 
 

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