Former Gov. Ryan remembered at Kankakee service: 'Nobody is the worst thing they ever did in their life.'

Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan faced trial more than a decade ago, though his funeral Thursday afternoon in Kankakee felt like one last relitigation of his legacy as he was laid to rest.

A Republican who served as a state lawmaker, an Illinois secretary of state, a state House speaker, lieutenant governor and later governor from 1999 to 2003, Ryan is best known for declaring a state moratorium on the death penalty in 2000 that eventually led to its abolition.

That legacy contends with the more than five years in federal prison he served as the result of a federal corruption probe into the illegal sale of commercial driver’s licenses in 2007 — actions that ultimately were linked to the 1994 deaths of six of Scott and Janet Willis’ children.

Among family members and loved ones in the front row of Asbury United Methodist Church was Andrea Lyon, nicknamed the “Angel of Death Row” for having represented many facing the death penalty.

Lyon, who represented Ryan in his legal case, still contends he was targeted for political reasons. She said the loss of the Willis children broke his heart even if there were others who Lyon felt deserved more of the blame.

She described Ryan, on his tougher days, as “imperfect and loyal to a fault,” unfortunately trusting those he shouldn’t have and leading to a period of disgrace for him.

But she said there wasn’t much value in painting people as definitively good or bad because “nobody is all one thing or the other” — part of the thinking that led to the end of the death penalty in Illinois, which she said is just as much a part of his legacy.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned from representing people facing the death penalty, is that nobody is the worst thing they ever did in their life,” Lyon told the Sun-Times before going to join Ryan’s loved ones at the Kankakee Country Club for a celebration of his life. “Redemption is real. I’ve seen it too much not to know that.”

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The memorial service didn’t shy away from Ryan’s conviction, with his former co-defendant and longtime friend Larry Warner eulogizing Ryan as a bipartisan political figure who would stand out as an oddity in today’s political landscape.

“It’s like we have the Democratic Party in here,” Warner joked. “Was he a Republican? … [On the death row moratorium] he became a liberal because it wasn’t right.”

Former Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, former Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios, former Illinois state Rep. Jim Durkin and co-founder of the Women’s Business Development Center, Hedy Ratner, were among the attendees.

Also in the crowd were prison advocate Bill Ryan and Stanley Howard, whom Ryan pardoned in 2003 after the Supreme Court reaffirmed his conviction in a murder and armed robbery case, despite his confession coming under disgraced Chicago Police Department Cmdr. Jon Burge.

During the service, Warner told stories about Ryan’s political career, including the one state execution he did go through with — convicted killer Andrew Kokoraleis in 1999. He said Ryan mulled the decision, sitting by the phone crying both before and after calling the warden.

Warner said that every time friends and other elected officials “tried to make him a politician instead of a good Samaritan,” Ryan would remind them he had to look in the mirror every morning to shave. Soon after, Warner said he bought Ryan an electric shaver to try to solve that.

“How many people have the opportunity to know friends or love somebody, who through their actions, changes the world?” Warner asked. “My dear friend George did that.”

It wasn’t all politics, as the Rev. Scott Henley joined some of Ryan’s family members in telling more grounded stories of the former state leader.

Henley said the first time he met Ryan was over homemade strawberry shortcakes Ryan had made just a short time after he was released from prison.

Henley also said Ryan was very engaged in the Kankakee community, whether it was using his influence to help somebody on the street or chatting with trick-or-treaters at Halloween.

“You mattered to him, not for a vote, but because you were his neighbor,” Henley said. “He was all about what he could do for his family and community.”