Gideon’s Heroes

Honoring Those Who Do Justice To Gideon’s Promise

THE PROBLEM: Anthony Porter was convicted of murdering a couple in a Chicago park. The police had interviewed a bystander who initially said he did not see who committed the crime. After 17 hours of interrogation, he told the police that he saw Porter shoot the victims.

During Porter’s trial, his attorney fell asleep and had to be awakened by the judge. Though the police had information from one victim’s mother that two other people had committed the murders in a dispute over drug money, they didn’t tell Porter’s attorney. The attorney never inquired or found the four witnesses who would have implicated the other two people. He said he had stopped investigating the case because it cost too much.

Porter was sentenced to death, his appeals were all denied and his execution date set. His family planned for his funeral. Suddenly, after spending 16 years in prison and just two days away from his execution, he won a reprieve from the Illinois Supreme Court. The State Appellate Public Defender, which had been appointed to represent Porter in his post-conviction appeals, had presented evidence that Porter’s IQ was so low that he was not competent to be executed. They had also presented evidence of Porter’s innocence, but it was rejected by the court.

Then the public defender office received an offer of help from an unlikely quarter: a group of four journalism students from Northwestern University, their professor, David Protess, and a private investigator he had hired. They interviewed the police’s supposed eyewitness, who said he testified against Porter only because of police pressure. And they found the two people seen arguing with the victims over drug money. One implicated the other, who then confessed on videotape. In 1999, Porter was finally freed, and the actual murderer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 37 years in prison.

THE SOLUTION: Former Illinois Governor George H. Ryan was deeply troubled by the saga of Anthony Porter. Eleven other people had also been exonerated from Death Row – a greater number than the state had executed during the same period. Although a longtime supporter of the death penalty, Ryan realized that the Illinois capital punishment system was plagued with flaws that could cost innocent people their lives. The Chicago Tribune had published a comprehensive series entitled the “Failure of the Death Penalty in Illinois,” which stunned Ryan. He learned that over 33 percent of the prisoners sentenced to die had been represented by attorneys who had been disbarred or disciplined.

Ryan learned that the capital system’s flaws were exacerbated by the police, prosecutors, judges, and defense lawyers, many of whom lacked the time, tools, or training to do their jobs. In January of 2000, Ryan imposed a moratorium on all executions and appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to study the system and figure out how to fix it. Two years later, the Commission sent him a voluminous report with 85 recommendations for overhauling the system, prominently featuring improvements to the public defense system. Ryan submitted the legislative package, but it the legislature didn’t enact it.

In October of 2002, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board held clemency hearings for almost all of the state’s death row inmates and for a two-week period, prosecutors and the relatives and friends of murder victims implored the board members and Ryan to proceed with the executions. Then Ryan was faced with “Dead Men Walking,” a march consisting of 37 former prisoners from across the country who had been exonerated from death row. They signed a petition for blanket commutation and each walked a relay until the last man, Anthony Porter, reached Ryan’s office to present the petition.

Ryan said of the capital system: “The Legislature couldn’t reform it. Law makers won’t repeal it. And I won’t stand for it.” Unwilling to pick and choose the fate of prisoners from a flawed system, and only 48 hours before his term as governor ended, Ryan pardoned four inmates on grounds of innocence and announced that he was going to commute all 167 other death sentences to life imprisonment.

THE HERO: After serving with the U.S. Army in Korea, Ryan graduated from Ferris State College in Michigan and became a pharmacist. He began his political career at the local level, serving on the Kankakee County Board. Ryan had an accomplished 10-year legislative career before serving as lieutenant governor for 8 years, and then secretary of state for 8 years. In 1998, he was elected as Illinois’ 39th governor.

Ryan’s effort to reform Illinois’ capital system was fraught with personal dilemma – from his long history of staunch support for the death penalty, to agonizing over the commutation of the death sentence of a man who had killed a close friend of Ryan and his wife. Despite the angry repercussions from his friends and former supporters, Ryan was unwavering in his advocacy for reform and truly believed that he “did my best to do the right thing.”

Ryan has been nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

PROGRESS . . . In 2001, in response to Ryan’s efforts, the Illinois Supreme Court established a Capital Litigation Trial Bar, with minimum standards for attorneys who represent people accused of crimes that could result in their being sentenced to die. It required that people accused of capital crimes be appointed at least two attorneys and mandated that judges receive more training on how to handle these difficult cases. In May 2003, the legislature enacted, and the new governor signed, legislation containing most of Ryan’s Blue Ribbon Commission’s recommended reforms. Policymakers in many other states have awakened to the possibility of flaws in their systems – both capital and non-capital – and have pushed through various reforms, ranging from public defense to reforms of eyewitness identification and interrogation procedures.

. . . BUT A LONG WAY TO GO: Although the Capital Litigation Trial Bar was meant to improve public defense, an investigation by the Chicago Tribune found a “porous, undemanding selection process” for certifying attorneys, including a significant number with a history of “infantile” or “reprehensible” tactics, and criminal and disciplinary records. Nationwide, according to a Columbia University study, 70 percent of all death row reversals are for ineffective defense representation. Courts have used the very low standard set in the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Strickland v. Washington to find that it is perfectly acceptable for a person facing the death penalty to be represented by a lawyer who is asleep, drunk, mentally ill, suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, or under the influence of drugs. And the question is increasingly raised: if such a disturbingly high rate of wrongful convictions exists in death penalty cases, where the highest degree of care is exercised, the rate must surely be as high – or far higher – in the vast mass of more mundane cases entailing “only” a sentence of imprisonment.

GIDEON'S PROMISE: Still unfulfilled.

Read about the January Gideon's Hero, Natasha Lapiner-Giresi.
Read about the February Gideon's Hero Rodney Ellis.
Read about the March Gideon's Hero The Georgia Chief Justice's Commission on Indigent Defense
Read about the April Gideon's Hero Roger Nell
Read about the May Gideon's Hero Penny Marshall