The cynical bid to commute Ryan's sentence

Listening to former governor and now practicing attorney James R. Thompson Tuesday, it almost made sense.

Thompson was making his pitch for why another former governor, George Ryan, his client, should receive a get-out-of-jail-free card from President George W. Bush.

Thompson focused on the lofty idea of the philosophy behind criminal justice sentences: to punish the wrongdoer so that he won't repeat the crime and to deter future potential criminals from doing the same thing.

In that narrow focus, Thompson is right.

Ryan will never commit this crime again. He won't have the opportunity. No one will re-elect him to any office and give him the chance to trade government contracts for cash and trips.

And judging from Illinois' track record with incarcerated governors (Otto Kerner and Dan Walker before Ryan) and other corrupt politicians (among them, State Auditor Orville Hodge, Attorney General William J. Scott and Secretary of State Paul Powell, who never was charged with a crime but left suspicious shoeboxes of cash when he died), one could argue that no amount of punishment seems to be enough to convince Illinois officeholders to stay on the straight and narrow.

Thompson also is right that Ryan has been through the ringer.

His name is disgraced, his pension appears to have been lost, and by the time Bush would likely take any action (November or later), Ryan will have been in prison for a year or so. No small punishment.

One could argue, what's the point, really, of having a 74-year-old man remain in prison another 5½ years and possibly die away from his family?

But then Thompson slipped. It was the press-conference equivalent of asking one too many questions while cross-examining a witness.

And as candid moments often do, Thompson's mistake came not in response to a tough question. Tough questions tend to put the defenses up and elicit guarded responses.

Thompson's error came in response to a fairly innocuous question: What's the difference between a pardon and a commutation?

A pardon wipes away the conviction, Thompson said. A commutation recognizes the conviction but shortens the sentence, he added. Ryan will seek a commutation, he said.

And there's the rub.

Ryan has never recognized his conviction.

On the day a jury said he was guilty, he maintained he had done nothing wrong: "This decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service I've provided to the people of Illinois over the years."

On the night before he went to prison, he struck a defiant pose, proclaiming his innocence and saying he would begin his sentence "with a clear conscience."

George Ryan violated his public trust and wronged the people of Illinois he had promised to serve.

To grant him special favors after all that would not only be unfair. It would invite the public's continued cynicism about our institutions of government.