This is our final post for the year--we wanted to end on an optimistic note, and we just came across the article below. Have a safe and happy holiday, we'll be back on a normal blogging schedule January 1.

428 legal scholars wrote a 3-1/2-page letter to outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan today, saying there is legal precedent to defend him if he decides to commute the death sentences of all 157 inmates on death row in Illinois to life in prison.

"The purpose of the letter is to express a legal opinion that if the governor follows his conscience, and if his conscience tells him that large-scale commutation or commutation of all [157] guys in Illinois is appropriate, that he would be acting legally and within the vein of American legal tradition."

Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Jimmy Carter, among others, granted blanket clemency for people convicted of various offenses.

"The clemency power traditionally has been used not only to correct injustices in individual cases but also as a response to problems in the systemic application of law,'' the letter states.