Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was back at his longtime home on Wednesday following his pre-dawn release from a federal prison after serving more than five years for corruption.
Detectives have long wondered what secrets serial killer John Wayne Gacy and other condemned murderers took to the grave when they were executed — mostly whether they had other unknown victims.
As Massachusetts governor, Republican Mitt Romney set himself a daunting challenge: craft a death penalty law that virtually guaranteed only the guilty could be executed, then push it through an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature that was leery of capital punishment.
Patrick Fitzgerald, one of the most feared U.S. attorneys in the nation and the architect of convictions against two Illinois governors and a former vice presidential aide, announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from the post he has held for more than a decade in Chicago.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, known as one of the most relentless U.S. attorneys in the nation and the architect of convictions against two Illinois governors and a former vice-presidential aide, announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from the post he has held for more than a decade in Chicago.
Republican Massachusetts Sen. Scott P. Brown and his chief Democratic rival, Elizabeth Warren, are trading jabs over her statements about her American Indian heritage.
Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich entered a federal prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin a 14-year sentence for corruption, the latest chapter in the downfall of a charismatic politician that seemed more like a bizarre reality TV show than a legal battle.
Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against criminal charges became a national spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday, one of the stiffest penalties imposed for corruption in a state with a history of crooked politics.
Jurors convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of trying to sell or trade President Obama's old Senate seat and 16 other corruption charges.
A jury convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Monday of nearly all the corruption charges against him, including that he tried to sell or trade President Obama's old Senate seat.
Illinois abolished the death penalty Wednesday, more than a decade after the state imposed a moratorium on executions out of concern that innocent people could be put to death by a justice system that had wrongly condemned 13 men.
Most private employers would have to display posters informing workers about their right to form a union under a proposed federal rule that is bound to please unions and draw the ire of companies trying to resist labor organizers.
Ryan, who has denied wrongdoing, is serving the tail end of a 6 1/2-year sentence in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., on multiple convictions, which in addition to fraud included conspiracy, tax fraud and making false statements to the FBI.
Inside Politics: Massachusetts Senate race raises questions on heritage →
It will take time for the legal issues to play out, said another Ryan attorney, Albert Alschuler.
Inside Politics: Massachusetts Senate race raises questions on heritage →
