29 January 2010 :

Imprisoned ex-Ill. Gov. Ryan again nominated for Nobel. In what has become an annual event, imprisoned former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who also is Honorary President of Hands off Cain, has once again been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for imposing a death-penalty moratorium in Illinois that still stands today. A Nobel nomination means that someone eligible to ask the Nobel committee to take a look has done so. That group includes international law professors. One of them, Francis Boyle at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, an anti-death-penalty activist, has nominated Ryan several times now. In an email today announcing his latest nomination of Ryan, Boyle cited Ryan's "courageous opposition to the death penalty," and his 2000 order to halt all executions in Illinois. Ryan initially gave that order as a temporary one, after it was revealed that 13 people had been wrongly sent to the state's death row. Ryan — a long-time death-penalty advocate — ultimately said he didn't believe there was any way the state could adequately ensure that no innocent person is put to death. He left his moratorium in place upon leaving office in 2003. It has remained in force since then. The anti-death-penalty lobby says, accurately, that Ryan's actions sparked a revival of the national debate over executions, a debate that continues today. If capital punishment ultimately falls out of use in the U.S., there’s little doubt that Ryan’s role will be credited as key. But others point out that Ryan's sudden conversion from gung-ho executioner to dovish anti-execution crusader came right around the time the Feds were lowering the boom on him for bribery, fraud and other crimes of corruption (for which he is currently serving a six-year sentence).