ILLINOIS GOVERNOR Hundreds await ruling on clemency requests

In some cases, the petitioners are innocent.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Robert Gayol spent five years behind bars for a murder he didn't commit. Then the real killers were caught, and Gayol was released to rebuild his life.
Two years later, he's among hundreds of people in Illinois waiting for a pardon to officially clear his record and allow him to seek compensation from the state.
"I don't think it should be on my record," said Gayol, of Chicago. "It's just unfair."
Gov. Rod Blagojevich has about 1,100 clemency petitions on his desk, and his aides say they feel little pressure to act quickly. They deny it's a backlog, saying Blagojevich has no deadline.
"Legally, we're not required to respond within any particular time," said Blagojevich's senior counsel Matt Ryan. "The governor's doing his best to be fair and give these important decisions the attention they're due."
Variety of people
Some awaiting clemency decisions are hardened criminals taking a desperate shot at freedom. A few, like Gayol, are innocent. Most are petty offenders hoping to have some long-ago crime erased so they can join the military or apply for better jobs.
The petitions are first studied by the Prisoner Review Board, which gives the governor a confidential recommendation on whether to grant clemency. Critics say Blagojevich could act on the petitions with a unanimous recommendation -- which account for about 40 percent of the requests.
But even in those cases, the Democratic governor still has to take a hard look at the requests, said spokesman Gerardo Cardenas.
"Just because there's a recommendation from the [board] doesn't mean that the case does not warrant further review," he said. "The clemency power is an extraordinary power and is used judiciously by the governor."
Previous governor
Executive clemency got a shot of publicity under former Republican Gov. George Ryan. Just before leaving office in 2003, he pardoned several people on death row and commuted the sentences of the remaining condemned inmates to life in prison over concerns of unjust convictions. After that, clemency requests flooded in.
At one point, Blagojevich had 1,600 clemency petitions pending, but Matt Ryan said the governor rejected about 500 this summer from violent criminals.
Blagojevich has granted clemency to more than 50 people in his nearly three years in office. A handful were innocent, Ryan said, but most were minor offenders who deserved a break.
Still waiting
Scott Zauhar, of Algonquin, is still waiting. Twenty-six years ago, he arranged to rob a gas station with the help of a pellet gun and a friend working there. He was caught and sentenced to probation.
Now Zauhar wants the "stupid" high-school offense wiped off his record so he can do more business as a security consultant.
"When people see my schooling and r & eacute;sum & eacute; and things I've done, everybody wants to hire you," he said. "Then they go and do a check and you're just black-marked immediately."
He filed a clemency petition nearly three years ago. "I'm just getting lost in the shuffle," he said.
One expert said the state's long waiting list for clemency and history of wrongful convictions are linked. Since Illinois resumed capital punishment in 1977, the death sentences of 13 people have been overturned. In some cases, evidence showed they were innocent; in others, they received unfair trials.
"The mentality that creates all of these atrocities is essentially the same," said Rob Warden, executive director of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions. "They don't care about people and the ramifications of the policies they're establishing."
The state's justice system improved after the wrongful convictions forced changes, Warden said.
"Now," he said, "if we could just get the governor to do what he is supposed to do."