Ryan pardons three wrongfully convicted in murder cases

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Gov. George Ryan on Thursday pardoned three men wrongfully convicted of murder, including Rolando Cruz, whose case has served as a symbol of flaws in the state's death penalty system.

Ryan made the announcement as he spoke before the University of Illinois College of Law on reforms he said are needed to avoid the "ultimate nightmare," executing an innocent person.

Before leaving office next month, Ryan will decide whether to commute the death sentences of about 140 death-row inmates. Two of the men he pardoned Thursday, Cruz and Gary Gauger, had been on death row. All three men had already been released.

Ryan said Cruz, Gauger and the third man to receive a pardon, Steven Linscott, are now working to rebuild their lives despite the stain of the reversed convictions.

'I wish them well'

"I wish them well; they've been through hell," Ryan said as the crowd gave him a lengthy ovation.

The pardons, which had been widely expected, came a day after federal prosecutors released papers alleging Ryan knew of wrongdoing by aides in the secretary of state's office he ran before being elected governor in 1998.

The governor issued a statement on the federal investigation saying he had a "clear conscience," and he bristled at suggestions that he timed the pardons to deflect attention from the federal probe.

"I'd say you're cynics," Ryan told reporters. "I've been working on this for a long time."

The pardons bring "an end to the official whispering campaign" and clear the mens' names, said Larry Marshall of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, which was involved in all three cases.

The pardons also allow the men to seek compensation from the Illinois Court of Claims, which compensates people wrongfully convicted.

Marshall said he spoke to Gauger's wife after Ryan's surprise announcement. "Her reaction was, in some ways, even more dramatic than when he had been freed," Marshall said.

Ryan's latest actions follow months of emotional pleas from death penalty opponents and counter-pleas from victims' families. He said he has reviewed 80 percent of the 140 clemency cases, and will rule before leaving office Jan. 13.

Ryan gained national prominence when he halted executions nearly three years ago, after courts found that 13 death row inmates in Illinois had been wrongly convicted since the state resumed capital punishment in 1977, compared with 12 executions.

The General Assembly has so far rejected his push for sweeping reforms, but Ryan said that could change when a less-conservative, Democratic-controlled General Assembly is seated next month.

Cruz was sentenced to die for the murder and rape of a little girl, Jeanine Nicarico. His case has haunted police, prosecutors, politicians and the victim's family for nearly 20 years.

At his third trial, Cruz was acquitted by a DuPage County Circuit Court judge after a police officer changed his story about an incriminating statement Cruz supposedly made. DNA evidence later pointed to someone else as the rapist. Cruz could not be reached for comment.

However, DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett issued a tough response to the news that Cruz had been pardoned. Birkett said:

"At best, Rolando Cruz is a man who committed multiple acts of perjury before a grand jury and intentionally obstructed the investigation of the abduction, rape and murder of a ten-year-old child. If you believe Cruz now, he intentionally pointed the finger of blame at people he now claims were innocent."

Gauger was on death row after being wrongly convicted of killing his parents. Prosecutors opposed his pardon, though they did not dispute that Morris and Ruth Gauger were killed by members of the Outlaws motorcycle gang.

The third pardon went to Steven Linscott, who was convicted of murdering a young woman in suburban Chicago. He told police about a dream he had that in some ways was similar to the murder, and police considered it a confession.

Linscott was in prison for more than three years before his conviction and 40-year sentence were overturned by an appellate court. Subsequent DNA testing exonerated him.