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Former Gov. George Ryan |
KANKAKEE – Former Gov. George Ryan regrets letting what turned out to be the last execution in Illinois proceed, he prays regularly for six children killed in a fiery crash linked to a state agency he once headed, and he's done answering questions about the marathon corruption trial that led to his imprisonment.
The 80-year-old spoke in his first interviews since his 2013 release from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The interviews with his hometown Kankakee newspaper, The Daily Journal, and the Chicago Sun-Times also coincided with the formal end on Wednesday of the Republican's supervised release.
"I don't have to get permission to do anything anymore," he told The Daily Journal.
Despite his five years behind bars, Ryan said he had few regrets in life.
But one, he said, was his decision in his first year as governor not to intercede and stop the 1999 execution of Andrew Kokoraleis. Soon after, Ryan placed a moratorium on executions and that eventually led Illinois to abolish the death penalty by law in 2011.
"I regretted killing that Greek fella," Ryan said.
Kokoraleis, the last prisoner executed in the state, was killed by lethal injection for the rape, kidnapping and murder of a 21-year-old Elmhurst woman, Lorraine Borowski. Citing systemic flaws, Ryan declared the moratorium a year later. In 2003, he cleared death row.
Source: The Herald News, July 2, 2014