Author testifies in Illinois governor case
CHICAGO --The nun whose best seller "Dead Man Walking" marked her as a leading opponent of capital punishment took the stand at George Ryan's conspiracy trial Tuesday and described the former Illinois governor as "a man of honesty and integrity."
"I find in him a man who is willing to look at public policy issues, even if it means growth and change," Sister Helen Prejean testified during Ryan's racketeering and conspiracy trial.
Federal Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer barred the 66-year-old nun from mentioning the issue that brought her together with Ryan -- the movement to repeal the death penalty in America.
Pallmeyer ruled the issue was irrelevant to charges that Ryan steered big-money state contracts and leases to friends and got free vacations and gifts in return.
Prejean testified that she had repeatedly met with Ryan to discuss "public policy" and "social policy" issues.
Under cross-examination by lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins, Prejean flashed humor.
"As a product of Catholic education, it's every schoolboy's dream to cross-examine a nun," Collins said with a broad grin.
"You'd better mind your p's and q's, young man, or Sister Godzilla will haunt you for the rest of your life," Prejean said as the courtroom cracked up.
Questioned further, she admitted that she was unfamiliar with the charges against Ryan and knew nothing about his relations with co-defendant Larry Warner and other friends and lobbyists who prosecutors allege showered him with valuables.
Ryan and Warner say they did nothing illegal when Ryan was secretary of state for eight years in the 1990s and governor for four years starting in 1999.
Before leaving office in January 2003, Ryan commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison and pardoned four others, declaring the state's capital justice system "haunted by the demon of error." Three years earlier he halted all executions in Illinois over fears that a flawed system had led to the wrongful convictions of 13 death row inmates.
"Dead Man Walking," published in 1993, tells the story of Prejean's work as spiritual adviser to a death row inmate. It later was made into a movie.
