Former Illinois prison warden asks for clemency

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A former prison warden serving a four-year sentence for reckless homicide and aggravated drunken driving has asked Gov. George Ryan for clemency, his lawyer said Monday.

Former Shawnee Correctional Center warden William Barham filed a clemency request with the Illinois Prisoner Review Board on Friday, said his attorney, Edward Kionka.

Barham, 48, is serving his sentence in a federal prison in Rochester, Minn.

He was convicted last year of being the driver in a late-night car crash Oct. 15, 2000, that left another person in the car, fellow prison employee, 47-year-old Jerry Isom, dead.

The two had spent four hours at a local bar after attending a fund raiser for Rep. Jim Fowler, D-Harrisburg, along with Department of Corrections Director Donald Snyder in Harrisburg, according to court papers.

Barham has testified he and Isom left the bar together. But Barham says it was Isom who was driving the state-issued car they were traveling in when it left a two-lane highway near the town of Simpson and crashed into a tree that night.

Barham's injuries were not consistent with injuries he would have suffered had he been in the drivers' seat, Kionka said.

Kionka also disputed the results of blood-alcohol tests that prosecutors say showed Barham was drunk at the time.

The man who prosecuted Barham thinks the clemency application has little chance of success.

"He has unsuccessfully attempted every other legal tactic to try to get out of prison," said Alan McIntyre, Johnson County assistant state's attorney. "This is just another one."