Judge orders Ryan to report to prison Nov. 7

A federal judge today set former Gov. George Ryan's prison reporting date for Nov. 7, provided Ryan does not succeed in his request to remain free on bond while he appeals his conviction with the U.S. Supreme Court.

That request for bond will be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit in Chicago this afternoon, said Ryan's attorney, Timothy Rooney.

Although the Seventh Circuit is under no constraints to rule quickly, another Ryan lawyer, former Gov. James R. Thompson, said Thursday he expects it to rule before Nov. 7.

In August, when a three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit turned down Ryan’s appeal, it ruled the same day on Ryan's request for bond, approving it.

If that court denies the request for bond, Ryan's team will ask the U.S. Supreme Court for bond. But experts say requests for bond at the U.S. Supreme Court level are almost never granted.

Ryan is slated to report to a prison in Duluth, Minn., to begin a 6 1/2-year sentence, but his legal team is trying to convince the U.S. Bureau of Prisons to let him serve his time at a prison in Oxford, Wis.

By a 6-3 vote Thursday, the United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit denied him a hearing by the entire court.

Ryan's legal team continued to hold out hope, based on a strong opinion by the three judges who dissented. Chief among those dissenters was nationally respected Judge Richard Posner.

"He told me that he would keep fighting," Thompson told reporters. "What do you think he's going to do, quit? He won't quit."

Ryan, 73, of Kankakee, received word of his gloomy news through the media.

"He's bearing up as well as you could expect," said Thompson.

U.S Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins, who prosecuted Ryan, hailed the decision.

"This case was always about breach of the public trust," said Collins.

Ryan was convicted more than a year ago for trading government contracts for benefits to himself and his family.

With the denial of rehearing, Collins said he's not counting any chickens before they're hatched, but he does get a sense that things could be over soon.

"A sense of finality is important for the system," Collins said.

But Ryan intends to fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Thompson said.

"(A fair trial is) the most fundamental right that we have," said Thompson. "If the forum isn't fair, then all of your other rights are irrelevant, aren't they?"

The appellate court majority did not issue an opinion in its denial of rehearing, which is standard. But the minority, perhaps in a sign of how strongly it felt, did take the unusual step of writing out its reasons for dissent.

"We agree with the (three-judge) panel majority that the evidence of the defendants' guilt was overwhelming. But guilt, no matter how clearly established, cannot cancel a criminal defendant's right to a trial that meets minimum standards of procedural justice," wrote the dissenting judges: Posner, Michael S. Kanne and Ann Claire Williams.

Thompson, at one point in his statements Thursday, appeared to agree with that assessment of evidence.

"I don't contest, if the trial was fair, the evidence was sufficient," he said.

But he quickly clarified that didn't mean Ryan was guilty. A new trial could allow in much of the evidence Ryan thought would show his innocence, and possibly result in a different verdict, Thompson said.

Thompson, like the dissenters, referred to a number of jury problems that plagued the trial, including misstatements by several of them that they had had no prior dealings with the justice system. In fact, several of them had -- a fact that was revealed in newspaper reports in the middle of deliberations.

The trial judge, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, threw off some jurors whose records didn't match their statements during jury selection but kept others. In the end, she found some of their explanations credible but did not believe others.

One of the jurors dismissed was Evelyn Ezell, a Chicago woman who had been a holdout for Ryan. One allowed to stay on was Kevin Rein, a Glen Ellen man who voted to convict.

Other jury issues included a juror bringing in outside material in violation of a judge's order. The defense questioned whether it was fair to restart deliberations with new jurors after the other jurors had already been deliberating for eight days.

Finally, jurors' who had made misstatements about their court interactions might have been worried about prosecution by the U.S. attorney trying the case, the defense contended.

Surprisingly, however, the dissenters spent eight pages of their 15-page decision talking about the six-month length of the trial -- an issue neither the defense nor the prosecution had brought up as a matter of concern.

"It's a bit strange," said Ronald Allen, a law professor at Northwestern University School of Law.

"Rather than try to demonstrate that the collective force of these problems puts this case over the line … it goes into this long discussion (of trial length)."

"It is interesting," agreed Thompson.

Some experts, like Len Cavise, a DePaul University College of Law professor, believe a new trial is warranted.

"I admire those dissenters (for taking) a look at this high-profile case in the eye and to call it what they called it -- which was a travesty," Cavise said.

But Allen said it was less clear-cut.

"Some of the things that happened in this case are troublesome, there's no doubt about it," Allen said. "On balance, it's not implausible to me that he should go to jail."

Collins pointed out that the trial took as long as it did, in part, because of requests by the defense.

"That's ridiculous. It was done by (Judge) Pallmeyer because she can't manage a case," said Cavise. "She just doesn't know how to say 'no.' … There are any number of judges who would have taken those lawyers into chambers and said, 'Clean up your act.'"

The dissenters seemed to take that view as well.

"Federal trial judges … recognize and discharge a duty of active trial management. … They do not defer abjectly to the lawyers' preferences regarding length of trial," they wrote.

Collins defended the judge.

"I think she's one of the most fair, if not the most fair judge in the building," he said.

However, he did concede: "I did think Posner was giving a treatise to judges about tightening up trials in the future."

Some jurors in the case said they felt Thursday's ruling was an endorsement of their finding.

"I was pleased with the decision by the appellate court," juror James Cwick of Glen Ellyn said. "This is just further upholding of rulings made by the three-judge panel and Judge Pallmeyer. I don't wish jail on anybody. But it was his actions that caused this."

"I'm not surprised," juror Denise Peterson of Hawthorn Woods said. "The evidence was so overwhelming. The man deserves to go to jail. All they (the defense) did was go after the jury, throw us under the bus."

Rein said, "We had it right all along. Hopefully he goes off, and he does his time."

Ezell, the holdout juror who was dismissed, disagreed.

"I think it's unfair," said Ezell, of Chicago. "Although I was not surprised. At this point, I've lost hope. I've lost hope for him that he's going to get any justice."

Lawyers for Ryan and the government will be in court today before Pallmeyer to finalize his reporting date of Nov. 7, said defense attorney Timothy Rooney. The hearing is at 10 a.m.

Ryan had last been slated to go to prison in Duluth Minn., but his legal team is asking the U.S. Department of Corrections to switch that designation to Oxford, Wis., Thompson said. He does not know if that request will be successful.

If the Seventh Circuit does not grant bond while Ryan's Supreme Court appeal proceeds, Ryan will appeal for bond to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice John Paul Stephens would be the one to rule on that request, Thompson said. If he does not rule before Nov. 7, Ryan would have to report to prison.

A decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court will even hear the case will likely come before their current term ends next summer, Thompson said.

If they won't hear the case, "that will be the end of the line," Thompson said.

Telephone calls to Ryan's home and cell phone went unanswered.