After months of rumors that he might be pardoned for the murder conviction that put him on Death Row, Stanley Howard finally started feeling optimistic when a fellow inmate said he’d seen Howard’s photograph on television hours before then-Gov. George Ryan was set to announce his decision.
And when Howard heard Ryan pardon him for a 1984 murder conviction that brought him to Death Row at Menard Correctional Center, he shouted with joy but soon was simmering in anger.
Ryan said Howard would remain in prison to serve the remaining 18 years of a 50-year sentence for convictions for armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping and rape.
Ryan said he had reservations about Howard’s convictions on those charges and suggested he would have freed Howard had he asked for a pardon on those counts.
But Howard hadn’t, and he was roiling about missing his chance for instant freedom.
“I started screaming that I had been telling people this for almost 19 years,” Howard said Wednesday as prison officials for first time permitted interviews face-to-face with Death Row inmates since the governor’s dramatic announcements on Friday and Saturday.
“I celebrated for about five minutes,” said Howard, 40, whom Ryan pardoned for the murder conviction that landed him on Death Row in 1987. “Then I got angry.”
Howard’s attorneys have filed requests in the First District Appellate Court of Illinois to reconsider his convictions for robbery, kidnapping and rape. But that process likely will take months if not years to resolve. In his speech Friday, Ryan strongly suggested that investigators examine Howard’s case.
Howard’s robbery, kidnapping and rape convictions depended heavily on witnesses testimony that the attacker had scars from bullet wounds on his left legs. But physicians who treated Howard for the gunshot wounds have stated in affidavits that they occurred four months after the alleged 1983 attack.
Meanwhile, prison officials also allowed interviews with inmates at Pontiac Correctional Center.
When Ryan announced clemency for all of Illinois’ condemned inmates last week, Ronald Kitchen was lying flat on his back on Death Row at Pontiac, his TV turned off and a pillow covering his face.
“I didn’t have anything to celebrate,” said Kitchen, who had hoped he would be among the men Ryan pardoned. “My thing was that I was going to get on up out of here.”
On Death Row, the mood during Ryan’s speeches was celebratory for many condemned inmates. But for a handful of men who have come to hope they would be exonerated, being excluded from the four pardoned brought them feelings that ranged from bitter disappointment to flickering hope that they would somehow be next.
While Kitchen buried his head in his pillow, Ronald Kliner broke into tears, a mixture of sadness for himself and hope that his freed friend Aaron Patterson would help his case.
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“Look at Aaron Patterson,” Kliner said in an interview at the Pontiac prison Wednesday. “Eighteen years in here and today I saw him on Oprah.”
In some respects, Wednesday on Death Row in Pontiac was like any other day. The inmates lounged on their cots, watching cable TV and reading letters. Some hunched over law books and correspondence from their attorneys, working on appeals of their cases.
But over the next month, the inmates in Pontiac will be moved to general population at either Stateville, near Joliet, or Menard in southern Illinois. Most of the inmates from Chicago hope to go to Stateville, on their outskirts of Joliet, because it is closer to home.
Prison officials say that the big adjustment for the former Death Row inmates would be the amount of movement outside their cells, and having a cellmate. Death Row inmates have all of their meals delivered through a slot in the barred door. But general population inmates eat lunch and dinner in a dining hall after having breakfast in their cells, corrections officials said.
Kitchen and Kliner both said they are looking forward to one aspect of general population–the library. On Death Row, they do all of their work in their cells and have access only to books they request. In general population they would be able to leave their cells to do research in the prison library.
Neither man seemed particularly concerned about the decreased isolation and increased danger of general population.
“I ain’t never been in the general population. It’s going to be a task,” Kitchen said, but added that he plans to stay focused on his appeals. “My goal is to get out of here and not to stay. I need to stay focused and work on my case.”
Kitchen said he remains driven, fueled greatly by his desire to be with his family again.
On the day the pardons were announced, he said it took family members three hours on the phone to calm down his mother, who lives in Augusta, Ga.
Kitchen, who celebrated his 37th birthday on Monday, said he had always believed he would be free by now. Recently, his son turned 17 and got his driver’s license. One of the first things he did was drive to Pontiac to visit his dad.
“It was a good feeling because he always said that when he was old enough he’d come, and he did,” Kitchen said.
Watching Patterson, Madison Hobley and Leroy Orange walk free last week was both inspiring and disappointing for inmates who believed they were in the running for a pardon from Ryan.
“From what I understand, I was this close,” Kliner said, holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. On the eve of Ryan’s announcement, Kliner said on Death Row, “everybody said, `you’re going home. You’re going home.'”
When the guards came to get Patterson, who lived in the cell next to Kliner’s, he said he wept and stuck his hands out to clasp Patterson’s jumpsuit as he walked by.
“He gives me such hope,” Kliner said.While Kitchen and Kliner hope to be released some time in the near future, and were disappointed to not be pardoned, f or many condemned inmates the commutations mean the world.
“It was like going to a party. People were clapping and cheering,” Kitchen said. “You’ve got some guys there who were actually on their last leg, and all they had to do was lift the moratorium and they’d come in and sign the death warrant. So the clemency was good for them.”