Politics

CHICAGO (CBS) ― The United States Supreme Court has refused to hear former Gov. George Ryan's appeal of his racketeering and fraud conviction.

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, the only hope for an early release from prison now is a possible clemency order by the president.

The justices made no comment as they refused to take up the 74-year-old former governor's claim that he had not received a fair trial due to chaotic jury deliberations.

Ryan's attorney, another former GOP Illinois governor, said he still believes Ryan's conviction on fraud and racketeering charges was the result of an unfair trial. But Jim Thompson knows there's only one way to cut Ryan's prison term now.

"We recognize that the judicial process has come to an end for governor Ryan and there will be no more court review," Thompson said. "In my opinion, the next appropriate step is to ask the President of the United States for executive clemency."

Thompson's legal team will ask President George Bush to commute Ryan's six-and-a-half year sentence. The reason? They claim Ryan has suffered enough.

"His career is gone. His reputation is gone," Thompson said.

Ironically, a recent statewide poll seemed to suggest otherwise. 2,301 Illinois voters were asked, "If you were given the choice between former Gov. George Ryan and current Gov. Rod Blagojevich, which do you think would do a better job running our state?"

The result: Ryan scored 52 percent, Blagojevich 48 percent.

Ryan was convicted in April 2006 of steering contracts to lobbyists and other friends, tax fraud, misuse of tax dollars and state workers and squelching an investigation of links between bribery and fund-raising.

His 37-page petition to the Supreme Court claimed his chances of getting a fair trial were wrecked when U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer replaced two jurors with alternates after deliberations were well under way. The two jurors were removed for failing to mention of their police records on a pretrial questionnaire.

Ryan's lawyers also argued the deliberations were tainted after one of the jurors, a substitute kindergarten teacher, brought legal materials she found on the Internet into the jury room in defiance of instructions.

Most of the corrupt activity charged in Ryan's indictment took place when the husky voiced, snowy haired onetime Kankakee pharmacist was Illinois secretary of state before his 1998 election as governor. Also convicted at the trial was businessman Larry Warner, who received leases for himself and clients from the secretary of state's office when Ryan was in charge.

Ryan and Warner filed a joint appeal with the Supreme Court and the high court refused to hear Warner's as well.

On Tuesday, Mayor Daley praised Ryan's performance as governor, saying he knew the importance of infrastructure like roads, bridges and schools.

"He had experience in government and he always knew it was important. People trusted him. They did," Daley said.

If President Bush does not commute Ryan's sentence, he won't leave prison until 2013. He will be almost 80 years old.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Tuesday that the refusal of the Supreme Court to hear the case vindicates the jury's decision and the judge's handling of the trial.

"Mr. Ryan has exhausted every legal avenue and argument afforded him but the verdict stands that he was guilty of corrupting the highest office in the state," Fitzgerald said in a statement.

The former governor is serving the 6 1/2-year sentence imposed by Pallmeyer at the correctional center at Terre Haute, Ind.

Under federal law, Ryan can get 15 percent of the sentence off for good behavior. His best hope of getting out before then would be if President Bush would commute his sentence -- something the president already has done for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff.

Libby was sentenced to five years for lying to a federal grand jury investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's status as a CIA officer.

Presidents traditionally issue a few pardons and commute some sentences just before they leave office and a successor is inaugurated.

A former federal prosecutor who represented the government at the Ryan trial said commuting the former governor's sentence would be a mistake.

"When defendants are charged and they are convicted by overwhelming evidence and it is in the context where the public trust was manipulated and violated then I think the conviction should stand," said former Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon, who is now in private practice.

Patrick M. Collins, the former federal prosecutor who led the Ryan investigation for eight years, praised the Supreme Court's action.

"This means the long legal saga is over and, importantly, it also means that the jury's decision and Judge Pallmeyer's handling of the trial has been vindicated and hopefully the conclusion of the proceeding will lead to deterrence for future conduct," Collins said.

There is no way to tell what Bush might decide about commuting Ryan's sentence but few if any doubt that he will be asked to do so.

Thompson still has influence in Republican politics and is certain to mobilize his network of lawyers, lobbyists and lawmakers in the cause.

One expert, Loyola University political scientist Alan R. Gitelson, said estimated the chances of a commutation at 50-50.

"If (Bush) commutes it, it will be on the grounds of (Ryan's) age and his health," Gitelson said. "Unlike Libby, it will be a humanitarian act."

The high court did not reject Ryan's claim that his trial was unfair. It refused to grant certiorari to the former governor's appeal. That is, it refused even to consider it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Editor's Picks

• Gay Celebrities
• Did You Know? Stars From Chicago!
• Celebs Who Lean To The Right
• Real Or Fake?