Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan died Friday morning at 91, more than two decades after leaving office for the last time (article available here).
He died just one day after being put into hospice care in his native Kankakee.
Ryan, a Republican, served one term as governor from 1999 to 2003, and spent the last decade or so of his life speaking about and ultimately writing a book on his 2000 decision to put a moratorium on Illinois’ death penalty and then commuting the sentences of 167 death row inmates in the state’s prison system to life sentences.
“I can’t really believe that there’s ever gonna be a system devised where an innocent person couldn’t be executed,” Ryan told Capitol News Illinois in a 2020 interview. “You gotta have a perfect law if you’re gonna have ... death as a penalty. So I just figured the best way to do it was to do away with that opportunity.”
He had previously served as Illinois Secretary of State from 1991 to 1999, and lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1991.