'Remember the other innocents'
By Jeff Flock
CNN
Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news. Jeff Flock, reporting on the pardon of an inmate sentenced to die in the stabbing of four people, filed this report.
CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- It was a frigid day in Chicago, but reporters were camped outside the Cook County Jail awaiting the release of Leroy Orange. He is a very soft-spoken man. We were told he wouldn't have much to say, and he didn't in terms of words, but he really communicated a lot, with his daughters standing next to their dad for the first time in 19 years.
I think the most telling moment was when he said "I just want you all to remember the other innocents who are still in prison." And I said, "Are there others on death row?" And he said, "Not only are there other innocents on death row, there are other innocents that have been executed."
Knowing Orange, I didn't expect more. He is the man who was portrayed in the Benetton ads -- the clothing retailer that did an ad campaign with several death row inmates. Orange is a remarkably reserved, very thoughtful man. So I didn't expect him to be screaming or hollering. He's got his act together; he says a lot with few words.
We had been following the cases very closely of two of the four men who were pardoned: Orange and Aaron Patterson. We did that basically just on our reporting: There seemed to be a lot of evidence that perhaps these men had been wrongly convicted. We have other cases that we're following now. There is evidence out there, [but] what that turns into you never know. What it turned into today was pardons.
I had thought Illinois Gov. George Ryan would pardon some people. He has been urged by prosecutors -- who are very angry with him -- to look at each case individually. He clearly did that in this case. There are 160 people on death row, and he pardoned four of them. It didn't surprise me that he found four, and there are probably other cases that ought to be looked at. (Full story)
There is speculation that Ryan will commute sentences in more than 100 cases, which will surprise people [when] that many people are taken off death row.
But [Ryan] is a man who, despite being conservative, despite having voted to reinstate the death penalty as a state legislator, this is a man who desperately does not want any innocent person put to death. And also, a part of him believes that life in prison is a worse penalty than death.
We've been pretty lucky at getting through to Orange. On-camera interviews on death row are forbidden. We talked to Orange while he was at Cook County Jail awaiting a court appearance about three months ago.
It's also difficult to report in that you want to be fair to all sides. It's difficult to put yourself in the place of someone who has had their loved one murdered, and in some cases, murdered before their very eyes.
Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, I don't think you can say how that opinion might change if one of our loved ones were the victim of a murder. So it's difficult in that you don't know what the truth is sometimes. That is what the justice system is about: getting to the truth. But some would say it's a great country where that is not necessarily the final word. We have the opportunity to give cases a second look and perhaps find mistakes that [were] made.
In the cases of the four men who were pardoned, [no] victims' families have come forward. In these cases, the governor thinks there is enough evidence to think that the men are innocent.
Other death row inmates, who might have their sentences commuted to life in prison, are people who are likely guilty but who the governor might think didn't get a fair trial or a fair shake from the legal system. In [some of] those cases, the family members of victims, perhaps rightfully, believe the right man was apprehended and sentenced. Those people will be upset [if] the death sentence does not get meted out.
