Brady's attempt to link Quinn, murder suspect falls short

SPRINGFIELD - State Sen. Bill Brady, the likely GOP nominee for governor, unsuccessfully attempted Thursday to link Gov. Pat Quinn's botched early prisoner release program with a downstate man arrested on a charge of murder.

Brady, a Bloomington Republican, suggested the release of Jonathon Phillips, a 21-year-old Springfield man who was later charged with murder, was part of Quinn's secret program that wrongly released 1,700 inmates from prison.

"This case looks like it was an absolute case of misjudgment and should not have been allowed to happen," Brady said during a Capitol news conference.

A spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, however, said the 45 months shaved off Phillips' six-year sentence for aggravated vehicular hijacking had nothing to do with the two suspended early release programs that became a contentious issue during the Democratic primary.

Phillips received routine day-for-day good time credit and 60 days of meritorious good-time credit. The good-time credit, however, wasn't part of Quinn's controversial "meritorious good-time push" program and was awarded in October 2007 - more than a year before Quinn became governor.

Brady used the Phillips' case as a way to tout legislation that would require the state to post information about early-released inmates similar to the way it's done for sex offenders, including the inmate's photograph.

A list of the inmates released under the governor's bungled early release program is already available on the department of corrections Web site, but Brady said he didn't know such a list was available.

"If I had them, I wouldn't be here asking for them," Brady said.

When told by reporters later in the day the corrections department said Phillips' release had nothing to do with the governor's early release programs, Brady insisted the numbers still didn't add up.

"They're going to make excuses for every misstep they've made," Brady said. "They made a misstep here. They let a guy out before he should have been let out."

Meanwhile, Brady's legislation cleared committee and will head to the full Senate for consideration. Brady is also pushing for a task force, which would include lawmakers and the state's attorneys, to review the state's early release policies.

Brady insisted attacks on the governor weren't to strike fear into voters but were rather "about good public policy for public safety."