Feb. 8 ILLINOIS: Dont turn trial into death penalty showcase, judge warns Ryans lawyers A federal judge on Wednesday limited lawyers for former Gov. George Ryan from describing the background of certain character witnesses, including some high-profile opponents of the death penalty, to prevent Ryan's controversial policy decisions from becoming issues in the trial. "I don't want this to be a back door way of inviting the jury to speculate about whether or not Mr. Ryan's decision about the death penalty was a good thing," U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer told lawyers in the case. Among the dozen or so possible character witnesses next week are Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking," and former "M*A*S*H" star Mike Farrell, both staunch activists opposing the death penalty. Pallmeyer agreed to let the character witnesses first be questioned outside the jury's presence to safeguard against their saying something the jury shouldn't hear. The judge agreed with prosecutors that jurors should be told only in general terms about the backgrounds of character witnesses with a connection to the death penalty or other hot-button issues. Some of the other possible character witnesses have backgrounds as activists on gay rights, domestic violence and handguns, prosecutors said. Character witnesses "are welcome to tell the jury that they know him in connection with an important matter that [Ryan] decided or an issue he decided," the judge said. Throughout the marathon trial, Pallmeyer has blocked the defense from revealing to jurors his efforts to fight the death penalty and other policy decisions he made in office, arguing they are irrelevant to the charges against the former governor. Days before he left office in early 2003, Ryan gave a blanket clemency to more than 160 death row inmates. Ryan's lawyers first sought to bar prosecutors from asking character witnesses if their testimony would change if Ryan were guilty of the charged offenses. But prosecutors moved to keep the character witnesses from testifying about Ryan's clemency. If that testimony was allowed, prosecutors said, they should be allowed to question the character witnesses about how fundraising practices by Ryan's campaign led to the selling of driver's licenses for bribes and the crash that killed 6 children of Rev. Duane "Scott" and Janet Willis. But Pallmeyer made it clear again that she doesn't want jurors to hear specific references to the Willis crash. She has previously barred the evidence as too inflammatory and prejudicial to the defense. Andrea Lyon, one of Ryan's lawyers, told the judge that the defense was contemplating calling 10 to 15 character witnesses interspersed throughout next week. The witnesses will testify to their opinion on Ryan's character for integrity and honesty. The defense doesn't intend to disobey Pallmeyer's admonitions against bringing the death penalty into the case, Lyon said. But she argued that there needed to be some mention of the character witnesses' work on the death penalty issue so they wouldn't be some "nameless, faceless, generic person" to jurors. "If we strip them of their identity, there's no way for the jury to assess this testimony," Lyon said. But Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Collins fretted that the death penalty would be injected into the case if jurors heard the background of those character witnesses. "That is Mr. Ryan's connection to these folks," he said in reference to Prejean and Farrell. "It's getting in the back door what they couldn't get in the front door." Pallmeyer was perplexed at why the defense wanted to call death penalty activists as character witnesses since the bulk of the charges against Ryan stem from his tenure as secretary of state, not governor. Ryan and co-defendant Lawrence Warner have been on trial since September on charges that Ryan took cash, gifts and vacations for himself and relatives in return for steering millions of dollars in state business to Warner and other friends. On a separate issue, Collins raised concerns after Warner discussed evidence in the case with a reporter within earshot of a juror while in line at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse cafeteria during a lunch break Tuesday. Pallmeyer directed the defense team not to discuss the case while in the cafeteria line. She had previously ordered that lawyers eat their lunches at the opposite end of the cafeteria from jurors. In the third full day of the defense case Wednesday, a former computer expert for the secretary of state's office testified that IBM won a $25 million contract in 1995 to replace the office main-frame computer because its product was superior to a rival bidder's. Prosecutors charged that competition was stifled in the deal to assure that Warner, IBM's lobbyist, reaped $1 million in fees. John Anderson, who headed a committee that unanimously recommended selecting IBM, testified no one put the fix in for IBM with him. On cross-examination, Anderson said Warner hadn't lobbied the committee on IBM's behalf and that he hadn't heard of Warner until he "started reading about this case in the newspaper." (source: Chicago Tribune) IOWA: Death penalty debate comes to the Heartland A bill at the Iowa Capitol is sparking some debate in the Senate. That debate was brought to the Heartland on Wednesday. State Senator Larry McKibben of Marshalltown, Iowa came to Ottumwa to speak about Senate File 2010. That bill would reinstate the death penalty for a person convicted of kidnapping, sexual assaulting and murdering a minor. McKibben came to Ottumwa specifically to call out local State Senator Keith Kreiman of Bloomfield, Iowa. Kreiman is a co-chair on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and McKibben says that Kreiman is leading the blockade on a death penalty debate. In March of 2005 while the Iowa Legislature worked on the state's tough, new sex offender laws, Senate Republicans introduced a proposed death penalty. The issue was dropped then, but lawmakers reintroduced the bill on the 1st day of the 2006 Legislative Session. "Senator Kreiman is one of these that is leading the blockade of this discussion, really keeping the shutters closed in the Iowa Senate, and that's the reason I'm in Ottumwa today (Wednesday), to talk about the senator from this district that will not allow this discussion that I know the people of Ottumwa and the people of southeast Iowa want to have discussed," McKibben said. "I'm very disappointed that a state senator from outside Ottumwa would come in and play partisan politics on such an important issue," Kreiman said. Kreiman says he is morally opposed to the death penalty, and that a bill in favor of the issue would fail. "The death penalty bill would certainly be defeated in the Senate. It would be defeated in the House, and would face a certain veto by the governor," Kreiman said. "I actually believe with 17 votes already on the bill, and needing 26, only nine more, in fact it has a significant chance of passing the Iowa Senate," McKibben said. Someone clearly touched by this issue is Jenny Slight. Slight is a great aunt to Jetseta Gage, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa girl raped and murdered last spring. A jury convicted Roger Bentley of killing Gage. "This man that did this horrible crime. He's not an animal. He doesn't have nine lives that we can sentence him over and over with the same punishment. He took Jetseta's life. He took everything. He took here future," Slight said. Slight called on Iowans to dropped the party politics and do what she says is needed to protect Iowa's children. "Call and write your senators. Tell them how you feel about this before it happens again, and hopefully it won't. You just don't know; don't let it be your child. Stop it now," Slight said. McKibben says there are several, published studies that show capital punishment has a strong deterent effect. Kreiman says lawmakers are looking to pass even tougher drug and sex abuse laws. Kreiman says he does not want lawmakers to get side tracked with a debate about the death penalty. (source: KTVO-TV News)
