In the largest purge of death row in US history, Illinois...

In the largest purge of death row in US history, Illinois Gov. George Ryan on spared the lives of 167 men and women condemned to execution - the most damning blow to capital punishment since the Supreme Court struck down states' former death penalty laws 30 years ago.
Ryan gave 160 men and four women life sentences without the possibility of parole. Three men received reduced sentences that could allow them to be released shortly.
A day earlier, Ryan gave outright pardons to four other men on Death Row, bringing to 171 the total spared potential lethal injections.
Ryan, a Republican, supported the death penalty until the number of innocent men freed from Death Row convinced him the system was broken. Because state legislators refused to pass even one reform to the system, he had no choice but the radical surgery he performed, he said.
"Like it or not, the decision I make about our criminal justice system is felt not only here, but the world over," Ryan told 500 cheering law students, anti-death penalty activists and men freed from Death Row at Northwestern University's Law School.
Ryan said he looked at every case and tried to separate the guilty from the innocent; the cases in which the system worked properly from those in which the system did not. He couldn't do it.
"Hell, I know some of those people are guilty," Ryan said. "But you can't pick and choose. That's what drove us to mass commutations. How many more cases of wrongful convictions have to occur before we can all agree that this system in Illinois is broken?"
Ryan leaves office n January 10.
"I thought, I could not leave without getting something done," he said.
Although his actions will assure his position as a leading advocate of death penalty reform, Ryan was under no illusions about the immediate fallout from his decision.
"I realize it will draw ridicule, scorn and anger from many who oppose this decision," he said.
"Even if the exercise of my power becomes my burden, I will bear it. Our constitution compels it."