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Gov. George H. Ryan took the unprecedented - and politically brave - step in January 2000 of declaring the nation's first moratorium on executions and naming a blue-ribbon commission to look into the causes and possible remedies of death penalty mistakes in Illinois.

The Governor was one of those honored by Northwestern University School of Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions at its annual awards dinner Nov. 30, 2000, at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

In accepting the award, Gov. Ryan praised the center and the Chicago Tribune, which also was honored at the dinner, for changing his views about the death penalty.

Marshall, in presenting the award, referred to the moratorium as a courageous act, but the Governor responded, "I don't know that courage is the best word to describe what I did. I just call it doing the right thing."

The center also honored the the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., and U.S. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (shown from left, Law School Dean David E. Van Zandt, Center Legal Director Lawrence C. Marshall, and Gov. Ryan) for their long-standing leadership and passion for justice. They were strong supporters of the high-profile cases that inspired the 1998 National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty at the Law School that led to the creation of the center. Rep. Jackson was one of the keynote speakers at that conference. More recently, his father joined the center in a major education effort featuring Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and in a last-ditch effort to expose the injustice of the Gary Graham execution in Texas.

Jennifer Thompson (shown with Van Zandt and Marshall) was honored for working with the center to educate the public about the criminal justice system's capacity for error. Sixteen years ago Ms. Thompson was raped and mistakenly identified an innocent man as her attacker, and he spent 11 years in prison before the mistake was discovered. Ms. Thompson joined the center in Texas last June in hope that her story might help save the life of Graham, who faced execution based on identification by a single eyewitness who had been contradicted by others.

The center honored Chicago Tribune Columnist Eric Zorn - shown with, from left, Tribune writers and co-honorees Ken Armstrong, Steve Mills, and Maurice Possley - for exposing official misfeasance and malfeasance at the highest and lowest levels of the Illinois criminal justice system. Armstrong, a legal affairs reporter, and Maurice Possley, who covers the Cook County Criminal Courts, exposed prosecutorial misconduct throughout the nation. Armstrong also worked with Mills to examine the administration of capital punishment in Illinois. After publication of the Tribune stories, Gov. Ryan cited the work of Armstrong, Possley, and Mills as a major factor in his decision to declare a moratorium on executions.

Leonard Goodman - shown with Marshall - received an award for his pro bono work on behalf of the wrongfully convicted. Among the cases for which Goodman was honored was the case of Kenneth Hansen, who was convicted and sentenced to 200 years in prison for a double murder he apparently did not commit.

In May 2000, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed and remanded the case. While the appeal was pending, Goodman developed compelling evidence that the murders had been committed by a violent criminal named Jack Reiling, who died in 1980.

The evening ended with a keynote address by Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D_Wis.- left, below, with Marshall, Northwestern Law Professor Dawn Clark Netsch, and former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Seymour Simon. Feingold is the U.S. Senate's most forceful advocate of a national moratorium on executions patterned after the one declared by Gov. Ryan. He is the sponsor of two bills - the Federal Death Penalty Moratorium Act and the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act - that would halt executions by the federal government and all 38 states that have death penalty laws on their books.

The Center on Wrongful Convictions, a world-renowned program of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at the Law School, was founded to build on the success of the 1998 National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty.

Since the 1977 restoration of the death penalty in Illinois, 12 men have been executed; 13 have been exonerated. The Center's faculty, staff, and students have been involved in the cases of 9 of the 13 exonerated men.

The center also focuses on raising public awareness of the prevalence, causes, and social costs of wrongful convictions and promoting reform of the criminal justice system. For example, in June 2000, the center sponsored a major event at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, Texas, the week before the execution of Gary Graham. The center took 12 innocent former prisoners, who had been erroneously convicted of murders crimes based on eyewitness mistakes, who stood as living proof that eyewitnesses can and do make mistakes. Although Texas officials refused to halt the Graham execution, the event drew international attention to the fallibility of eyewitness testimony.

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