Okay, my thought-provoking musings on now-former Governor Ryan and his blanket clemency for death row inmates just itself because a victim of a flawed and corrupted system. Which actually isn't meant to be flip or insensitive, just a coincidence. Not ironic, because it's in line with my views on this whole situation. I've always been of a mind that capital punishment would be fine if it actually worked, but the legal and judicial system is such that it can never have the intended effect. Which is to deter crime, plain and simple. One of the more interesting things Ryan said in his news conference on Saturday was that revenge as a goal of the judicial system isn't quite right. Sure, there are friends and family of 167 convicted criminals who likely disagree, but as I'm perhaps too far removed to have the proper emotional response, they're also too close to make those kinds of calls.

I'm not sure that anyone can successfully defend the Illinois death penalty, as it's been applied, as a fair, judicious process. That being the case, didn't Ryan only have three choices? First, he could have done nothing. Second, he could have imposed his desire for fairness on a case-by-case justice. Third, blanket clemency. The first would obviously be irresponsible, and the second would have been a bigger affront to prosecutors than they're claiming his actual choice of the third option to have been. That leaves baby and bathwater thrown out by design. If the system is as utterly unreliable as this one has been shown to be, even a correct result was not arrived at properly. Yes, it smacks of rewriting history such that the death penalty didn't exist when these cases were tried. Yes, it's not fair to those already executed. Yes, it's a bit dubious in light of Ryan's potential corruption charges. Yes, those close to the victims feel betrayed. There just really wasn't anything else that could be done.

The knee-jerk reactionary political response to this stance is to say that I am on the side of murderers, but that's ridiculous on its face. Even so, it's the kind of demonization that will be flung around in the media for as long as this story gets play. Which is unfortunate on any number of levels, as I'd love to hear real explanations of what other options Ryan had in this instance.