On January 10th, 2003, Governor George Ryan pardoned four men from Illinois' death row. That brought the total up to 17 men who had been sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit, exonerated after years of wrongful imprisonment. The next day, Governor Ryan, historically a proponent of capital punishment, commuted 167 death sentences to life without parole. When announcing the pardons, Ryan called the criminal justice system under which these men and women were sentenced to die "deeply flawed," "arbitrary," and "haunted by the demon of error."*