In a move of unusual political courage and integrity, ‘Gov. George Ryan will commute the death sentences of all 156 inmates on Illinois’s death row, and he has sent letters to victims’ families warning them of the move, his spokesman said Saturday… Ryan halted the state’s executions nearly three years ago after courts found that 13 death row inmates had been wrongly convicted since the state resumed capital punishment in 1977 – a period during which only 12 other inmates were executed… Ryan spread the blame in his hour-long speech, calling the state’s criminal justice system “inaccurate, unjust and unable to separate the innocent from the guilty, and at times very racist.” ‘ The Nando Times If anyone can point me to any press about any behind-the-scenes political machinations involved in this decision, I would be grateful.