Tragic case cried out for Ryan

Tragic case cried out for Ryan's mercy
By Eric Zorn
Tribune columnist
Published January 23, 2003

Those who think former Gov. George Ryan went soft there at the end should consider the story of Debra Lynn Gindorf.

In March 1985, Gindorf, then 20, was living with her 23-month-old daughter and 3-month-old son in a tiny apartment in Zion. Her physically abusive, alcoholic husband had deserted her, and she had no job, no phone and no car. And as numerous mental health experts have since concluded, she was suffering from severe untreated postpartum depression, possibly postpartum psychosis.

In her madness she fed her children a fatal dose of crushed sleeping pills and then tried to kill herself in the same way. Her suicide note said she expected to meet them in heaven. When she woke up still in her earthly hell, she spent 14 hours trying to kill herself in other ways before giving up and turning herself in to police.

Gindorf was found guilty but mentally ill in Lake County and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

But this was back when even many doctors saw postpartum depression as merely the "baby blues," not the rampaging mental disturbance we now know it can be. This truth was underscored locally when four new mothers in the Chicago area took their own lives during the summer of 2001.

Understanding grew. And from 1988 to 2000, all five of the women in the U.S. who were diagnosed with postpartum psychosis after killing their child or children received sentences of probation and mental health treatment, according to DePaul University law professor Michelle Oberman.

Oberman, author of the book "Mothers Who Kill Their Children," said her research found that during the same time period, those with the lesser diagnosis of postpartum depression who were convicted of murder received no more than 2 years in prison.

Gindorf's life sentence "was a miscarriage of justice," said a letter written last summer to Ryan. "I am appealing to you to correct this situation. You have shown by your attitude about the death penalty that you have a sense of fairness and compassion. . . . This is a special situation which needs your humanitarian touch to correct."

The letter was not from Gindorf's advocates but from Dr. Ronald Baron, the Highland Park psychiatrist who testified for the prosecution during Gindorf's 1986 trial.

Medical and legal experts and other supporters who testified at Gindorf's hearing last April before the Illinois Prisoner Review Board pleaded for mercy for a woman who everyone agrees was afflicted at the time of her crime with a profound biochemical imbalance in her brain. Now, at age 38, she suffers only from unending remorse and poses no danger to anyone.

"The evidence is overwhelming that Debra's criminal behavior was beyond her control, a radical departure from her fundamental nature and character, and virtually impossible to recur," said the written petition, which is posted at www.freedebra.org.

The Lake County state's attorney's office has not objected to Gindorf's release. In fact, no one has made rebuttal presentations or submitted written arguments in opposition at Gindorf's last two clemency hearings, and Lake County did not respond to my request this week for comment.

Who says she should still be in jail? The unbending statutes that mandate a life sentence for a double-murder conviction.

Yet this is exactly the kind of case that the extraordinary power to commute and pardon was designed for--a case that demands the compassionate touch in the end to "soften the rigor of general law," in the words of 18th Century jurist William Blackstone.

So why, as Ryan was emptying Death Row and devoutly proclaiming his commitment to fairness and justice, did he deny this pitiful woman's plea to be released after nearly 18 years?

Ryan's former spokesman did not respond to a request for an explanation. But one of Gindorf's attorneys, Assistant State Appellate Defender Kathleen Hamill, speculated that Ryan didn't release Gindorf because it would have conflicted with the reassurance he offered when he granted a blanket reduction of death sentences: that no one serving life without parole in Illinois has ever won a commutation.

No? I'll await a better explanation, then, one that doesn't make it sound as though public relations strategy affected Ryan's frequently stated determination to do what's right.

And meanwhile, I'll hope that our new governor considers this tragic case to be among Ryan's lingering messes he's determined to clean up.