Re: Robert Crimo pleads guilty

On 2025-03-04 6:24 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
 

. . .

 

Do you have the death penalty in Illinois? I'm guessing not; the article
I read predicted he would never get out of prison but didn't take about
execution.

 One of our governors who went to prison (George Ryan, Republican, for a
significant amount of bribe taking when he was Secretary of State
administering driver's services and an unqualified truck driver killed a
half dozen people) put a moratorium on the death penalty. It wasn't
constitutional but no one had standing to challenge it. Eventually the
legislature repealed it.
 A notorious murder trial, the Ford Heights Four, was the political
scandal that led to ending the death penalty. A jury was chosen in
violation of the Sixth Amendment (prosecutors had used pre-emptory
challenges to eliminate blacks from the jury) and an exculpatory
eyewitness statement to police was withheld from the defense.
 But there were other cases in which there had been a death penalty after
an unfair trial for various reasons, or when it had become obvious that
the defendants were actually innocent.
 George Ryan ended up commuting or pardoning a great many men on death
row. I still think he was partly motivated to gain sympathy knowing the
federal prosecution he was facing.
 Just think about how corrupt the justice system would have to be for a
politician in my state to be forced to do the right thing.

A thing I've seen many times over the years has been the statement that the institutions in Country X are notoriously corrupt; this statement always seems to contain the unspoken follow-on "unlike MY country". But it's become increasingly clear to me that EVERY country has corruption, even mine and yours. Nobody gets to say "I live in a perfectly honest country"; the best we can say is that "my country is more honest than many" (or, in some cases, "at least my country isn't the MOST corrupt in the world").
It's a shame. I could see a role for an institution designed to root out corruption on an ongoing basis in EVERY country. We could all do better in that department.
 From what I read in Ryan's wiki article, he really didn't get hit too hard compared to what could have happened; just a few years in prison and another few months under house arrest. He's apparently still alive today.
--
Rhino