Nation & world briefing
Illinois governor apologizes to families
John Keilman
Chicago Tribune (KRT)
CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. George
Ryan said he unintentionally misled
the families and friends of those slain
by Death Row murderers when he
told them he was leaning away from
a blanket clemency.
That was the position he shared
with more than 100 victims’ family
members at a December meeting. In
a speech Saturday, he said that as re
cent as a week ago he thought he
would not grant mercy to every
Death Row inmate. But then, he
said, he changed his mind.
“They have a right to feel be
trayed,” he said in an interview after
his speech, blaming his own vacilla
tion. “I have probably misled them,
certainly not intentionally.. . . I apol
ogize to those people.”
Many friends and family members
of murder victims did not accept
that apology. They said they believe
Ryan had intended from the start to
pardon or commute the sentence of
every condemned prisoner, and that
the move was designed to divert at
tention from his administration’s
corruption scandals.
“I just think it’s political tactics,”
said Helen Sophie Rajca of Boling
brook, 111., whose two brothers were
stabbed and shot to death in 1979.
“It’s not right what he did.... This is
just to blindside everybody from
what he’s done.”
On Saturday, Ryan declared the
states capital punishment system
“haunted by the demon of error”
and commuted the sentences of
every inmate on Illinois’ Death Row.
With two days left as governor,
Ryan declared that most of the
state’s 156 condemned prisoners
will now serve terms of life in prison
without parole. Three Death Row
inmates, whose cases Ryan said
raised particular fairness concerns,
were granted 40-year prison terms,
allowing the possibility of release in
several years. And 12 additional
people — who had once been sen
tenced to Death Row but are await
ing new sentencings — will receive
life in prison without parole.
“Because the Illinois death penal
ty system is arbitrary and capricious
— and therefore immoral — I no
longer shall tinker with the machin
ery of death,” Ryan said, borrowing
the words of former U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Harry Blackmun. “I
won’t stand for it. ... I had to act.”
© 2003, Chicago Tribune. Distributed
by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information
Services. Monica Davey and Steve Mills
contributed to this report.
News briefs
Maurice Gibb, of Bee
Gees fame, dies at 53
MIAMI — Maurice Gibb, whose
mastery of popular music for more
than four decades and whose contri
bution to contemporary standards
such as “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep
Is Your Love”and “Massachusetts”
proved indelible, lost his fight for life
at 1 a.m. Sunday.
The 53-year-old musician and
member of the Bee Gees — with
twin Robin Gibb and brother Barry,
55 — died at Mount Sinai Medical
Center in Miami Beach.
“To our extended family, friends
and fans, it is with great sadness and
sorrow that we regretfully announce
the passing of Maurice Gibb,” Gibb’s
family said in a statement. “His love
and enthusiasm and energy for life
remain an inspiration to all of us. We
will all deeply miss him.”
Gibb, who sang and played key
boards and bass for the Bee Gees,
had emergency surgery for an intes
tinal blockage Thursday. The hospi
tal reported that before his surgery
he suffered cardiac arrest.
“There were no clues that this was
going on; it’s devastating,” Bee Gees
recording engineer John Merchant
said Sunday morning from the
brothers’ Miami Beach recording
studio, Middle Bar.
There are more than 500 cover
versions of the Bee Gees’ songs in ex
istence, the brothers were inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1997 and they have won seven
Grammy awards.
Though Gibb’s bass-playing gave
“Stayin’ Alive” its propulsive and un
forgettable lift — try to imagine that
immortal opening shot of John Tra
volta walking down the street at the
beginning of the Saturday Night
Fever film without that beat — Gibb
made an impact when he sang lead,
too, as on “Man in the Middle” from
2001’s “This Is Where I Game In,”
the Bee Gees’ last CD.
“It’s really about me in the mid
dle of everything that I’ve done in
my life. I just made it more roman
tic,” Gibb said in an interview with
The Herald in April 2001. “Some
one once called me the engine.
Each one of us fell into a role as we
grew up. ... I always thought we
were triplets, but something hap
pened to Barry — he sort of sprang
up real quick! So we’ve gone
through life doing everything
together.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
— Howard Cohen, Knight Ridder
Newspapers (KRT)
Gen. Franks: Military
can handle challenges
MACDILL AIR BASE, Florida —
Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of
the U.S. Central Command, says that
no matter where a problem emerges
in the world, if America’s military is
called on to handle it, “we win,” even
as it fights a global war on terrorism.
In a rare interview exclusively for
Knight Ridder Newspapers at his
headquarters outside Tampa, Franks
declared: “It doesn’t make any differ
ence. You allude to Iraq. It could be
North Korea. It can be any number of
places. It doesn’t make any differ
ence. If we do it at this point in Amer
ican history, we win.”
Franks, who is in charge of U.S.
military operations in the Persian
Gulf and Afghanistan, said that Amer
ica’s forces are trained, equipped and
ready as never before.
“In one respect we live in a crease
in history. We found our own vulnera
bility on 9/11. Since then, we have
come to grips with that reality at the
same time we are finding new tech
nologies, new capabilities, new tac
tics, techniques, procedures, new
doctrines, new capacities for the use
of military force.”
Pranks predicted that if a decision
is ever made to go to war with Iraq —
“and I can tell you on the record that
the president of the United States has
not made a decision to do this” — an
international coalition equal to the
35-nation one assembled for the 1991
war with Iraq would come together to
join in the campaign.
Despite widespread speculation
that rising desert heat in spring re
quires any invasion of Iraq to begin
well before then, the general said his
forces were not tied to any timetable.
— Joseph L. Galloway, Knight
Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
Families say goodbye
to departing Marines
NORFOLK NAVAL BASE, Va. —
Not even bitter cold could stop fami
lies from turning out Sunday morning
to bid farewell to roughly 5,000
Marines and sailors aboard four more
ships departing Hampton Roads for
the escalating war on terrorism and a
increasingly likely war with Iraq.
Like the three ships that left on Fri
day, the amphibious ships USS Ash
land and USS Portland, based at Lit
tle Greek Naval, and the USS
Kearsarge and USS Bataan, based at
Norfolk, are used to launch invading
Marine units.
Navy officials wouldn’t comment
on where the ships are going, what
they’ll be doing or how long they’ll
be doing it.
Among the families here, there’s
a sense that war is on the march
and that the last hug should be
cherished because the next could
be months away.
“We are preparing for a big deploy
ment,” said John Masters, who along
with son Joshua, 7, daughter Paryn,
3, and mother-in-law Donna Maes,
who were waiting to see off wife,
mother, daughter and USS Kearsarge
legal officer Petty Officer 1st Glass
Leonette Masters.
Masters’ ship carries 1,100 sailors
and a landing force of 1,900 Marines.
“This isn’t a scheduled thing, so
they’ll be gone for as long as it takes,”
said John, also a petty officer who is
currently on shore duty. “I just hope
that we get over there and raise hell
and get back.”
— R.W. Rogers, Daily Press (KRT)
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