WASHINGTON, DC, February 17, 2005 — The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce former Illinois Governor George Ryan as this year’s keynote speaker for the Life in the Balance Conference, March 18-22, at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel in Louisiana.

More than 400 capital defense attorneys, investigators and mitigation specialists are expected to attend this event. It is the only capital defense seminar of its type nationally that provides cutting-edge training. The Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, Project & Capital Resource Counsel, the National Association of Sentencing Advocates, and the American Bar Association Death Penalty Representation Project are partners with NLADA in sponsoring this conference.

Governor Ryan distinguished himself as a national and international advocate to abolish the death penalty during his political term. Attendees will hear a first-hand account of the governor’s personal journey in opposing the death penalty and the insight he gleaned from the state of Illinois’s reform effort to correct the capital punishment system.

Between 1999 and 2003, Governor Ryan successfully led a forward-looking, efficient and effective administration that stressed advancements in education, a higher standard of living for the state’s residents and improvements to Illinois’s human and physical infrastructure. In 2003, after an exhaustive study documenting serious flaws in the Illinois capital punishment system Governor Ryan commuted to life in prison the sentences of all 156 inmates awaiting execution in the state’s prisons. This act of courage, justice and fairness was a first for any governor of any state in the union and underscored Governor Ryan’s fear that the flawed administration of Illinois’s capital punishment laws might some day lead to the execution of an innocent man or woman.

Troubled by these numbers, in 2000, Governor Ryan became the first state chief executive to place a moratorium on any further executions while an intensive study of the capital punishment system was undertaken. The result of that study was more than 80 suggested reforms designed to prevent the ultimate miscarriage of justice, which earned Governor Ryan both controversy and praise from around the United States and the world, as well as a nomination for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize.

For more information, please visit the NLADA Web site at www.nlada.org/Training.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), founded in 1911, is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans. NLADA champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members.