From the Tribune

Ryan lawyers take appeal fight to U.S. Supreme Court
Lawyers file petition to overturn conviction
By Michael Higgins | Tribune Reporter
January 24, 2008 In a final bid for a new trial, lawyers for former Gov. George Ryan urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn the sweeping corruption conviction for which he is serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence.
Ryan's lawyers argued in a petition filed with the court in Washington, D.C., that Ryan's historic, six-month trial in 2006 was marred by a series of juror controversies.
"Here, for the first time in the history of American jurisprudence, a federal district court significantly changed the composition of a jury over defense objection eight days into deliberations at a time when the parties knew the jurors' likely views of the evidence," Ryan attorneys Dan Webb and former Gov. James Thompson argued in a brief filed Wednesday.
"This manipulation of the jury's composition deprived [Ryan] of the fundamental right to a fair trial by an impartial jury," they wrote.
The nation's highest court, however, agrees to hear only about 2 percent of its criminal appeals. To be among that 2 percent, Ryan's lawyers must persuade at least four of the court's nine justices that his case raises legal issues of national importance.
Given the unique nature of Ryan's trial, "I think they're fighting an uphill battle," Steven Goldblatt, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said.
If the court agreed to hear the appeal, Ryan's lawyers would need to persuade a majority of the justices in order to be granted a new trial.
In 2006 a jury convicted Ryan of steering millions of dollars in state business to lobbyist Lawrence Warner and other friends in return for vacations, gifts and other benefits to Ryan and his family. Warner, who was also convicted and sentenced to almost 3 1/2 years in prison, joined in the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Ryan's trial ended in a series of juror controversies. During deliberations, after the Tribune reported two jurors had concealed their arrest records months earlier during jury selection, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer dismissed both, replaced them with alternates and ordered deliberations restarted.
Ryan's lawyers contend that prosecutors had other motives for dismissing one of the jurors. In a series of notes before the deliberations collapsed, other jurors had complained that the juror was refusing to deliberate. She later acknowledged she would have been a Ryan holdout.
But prosecutors have argued -- successfully, so far -- that they didn't know the juror's view of the case when they pushed for her to be removed.
Last August, a three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to affirm Ryan's conviction, though the lone dissenting judge blistered Pallmeyer's handling of the trial. In a 6-3 vote in October, the full appellate court refused to reconsider the three-judge panel's ruling.
But Ryan's lawyers have said they hope a forceful dissent, signed by Judge Richard Posner, one of the nation's most influential judges, and two others, would help persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Ryan's case.
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