Thought you guys would find this interesting.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=336122

Oh btw Brian Dugan was just sentenced to death for the murder of Jeanine Nicarico.

I would have to watch a video of him doing this to know for sure whether Jim Ryan was being sincere or not. I guess for now I will have give him the benefit of the doubt that he was. However when I hear of prosecutors apologizing, it reminds me of the prosecutor in Patricia Stallings case who gave about the most fake apology I have ever seen. But I would certainly hope that Jim Ryan was sorry. In fact, the fact he lost the 02 Governor's race to Blago I feel is punishment enough for him. He lost due in part to negative publicity from this case. What I want to know is did the Nicarico's ever apologize to Cruz and Hernandez? As far as I know they have not.

As for Dugan getting death. Ughh. I will not shed any tears over the guy. But that said, I feel this is basically a LWOP sentence even though the sentence says death. Illinois currently has a moratorium on the death penalty, I do not see anyone getting executed anytime soon. Even if Dugan does someday get executed, it is probably 15 to 20 years away at least. It is not surprising to me that he was sentenced to death again. I will say, Dugan's process might be sped up a bit faster, mostly because he pled guilty, so basically the only issue he will have to appeal is his sentence.

To take it a step further, personally, I think that it is mighty curious that Jim Ryan is suddenly now apologizing for what he did to Cruz and Hernandez. Like I said, for now I will give Ryan the benefit of the doubt that he is being sincere in that apology. However my personal belief is that Ryan is doing this now because he knows he cannot and will not ever be elected Governor unless he apologizes. Like I said, in my opinion this case was a major contributor to why Ryan lost re-election for Governor back in 2002. At that time during a debate, the two candidates for Governor, Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan were allowed to ask each other questions. Blago's question to Ryan was did he have any political regrets? Ryan answered No. Blago then quizzed him on whether he regretted trying to kill Rolando Cruz, Alex Hernandez and Stephen Buckley to which Ryan never answered the question and moved on.

Basically if these run away prosecutors were treated more seriously and held accountable when they screw around and play games and politics with people's lives these incidents would not be as rampant as they are... Off hand I can think of several people that have and do hold elective office that were prosecutors that later had suspects they had thrown in prison proven innocent. Here is just a few of them.

Jim Ryan (R-IL) was DuPage County State's Attorney for over a decade. First elected in 1984 and re-elected in 1988 and 1992. He resigned from the office after being elected Attorney General of Illinois in 1994. He was re-elected to that position in 1998. He was the republican nominee for Governor in 2002 and he lost to the democrat candidate, then Congressman Rod Blagojevich who has since been impeached. Ryan had also been the republican nominee for Attorney General of Illinois in 1990 but narrowly lost to Roland Burris who is now a U.S. Senator. In fairness to Ryan he has been through plenty of personal tragedy's which I would not wish on my own worst enemy. Losing two of his children, one to illness, one to suicide, battling cancer himself and nearly losing his wife to a severe heart attack.

Joe Birkett (R-IL) who has worked for the DuPage County State's Attorney's Office since 1981. He was appointed State's Attorney to finish out the unfinished term of Jim Ryan. Birkett has been re-elected in his own right in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008. Birkett was the republican nominee for Attorney General of Illinois in 2002, narrowly losing to current Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In 2006, Birkett was the republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. Birkett was planning on running for Attorney General again next year but backed out when Lisa Madigan announced she was running again.

Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) was an assistant Attorney General in Missouri for several years in which he prosecuted numerous cases and sent at least three innocent men to prison for murder. Hulshof used his career as a 'top notch' prosecutor to be elected to Congress from Missouri's 9th district in 1996. He was re-elected 5 times. He nearly became President of the University of Missouri in 2007. In 2008 he was the republican nominee for Governor of Missouri but lost the election to Attorney General Jay Nixon (ironically Hulshof's boss while he did the prosecutions of the three innocent men).