CHICAGO — Outgoing Gov. George Ryan emptied Illinois’ death row of 167 inmates in a Saturday speech at the Law School, validating years of work by Northwestern faculty and students to free the wrongfully convicted.

The governor’s historic move was greeted by several standing ovations from the invitation-only crowd of anti-death penalty activists, lawyers and exonerated prisoners, including three of the four former death row inmates pardoned only the previous day.

“Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious, and therefore immoral, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death,” said Ryan, borrowing the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun.

Governor-elect Rod Blagojevich, Cook County state’s attorney Richard Devine and some victims’ families met Ryan’s announcement with anger and were quick to criticize the decision as a mistake.

“(The death penalty decision) was ripped away from the courts by a man who is a pharmacist by training and a politician by trade,” said Devine, according to The Associated Press. “Yes, the system is broken, and the governor broke it today.”

On Friday at DePaul University’s College of Law, Ryan pardoned Madison Hobley, Stanley Howard, Leroy Orange and Aaron Patterson, saying their convictions were based on false confessions coerced by police brutality.

Two of the men have ties to NU. Students in NU Prof. David Protess’ investigative journalism class worked on Patterson’s case for five years, and Law Prof. Thomas Geraghty and his students at the Law School’s Bluhm Legal Clinic had been working on Orange’s case since 1989.

Ollie Dodds, mother of a woman who died in an apartment fire Hobley was convicted of setting, told the AP she still believes Hobley is guilty.

“I don’t know how (Ryan) could do it,” she said. “It’s a hurting thing to hear him say something like that. (Hobley) doesn’t deserve to be out there.”

Ryan said his decisions came after weeks of wrangling with his own feelings about the issue and deliberating the merits of each case. In addition to commuting the sentences of 164 death row inmates to life in prison without parole, the governor commuted the sentences of three men to 40 years, bringing them in line with defendants involved in the same crimes.

But blanket commutation for current death row inmates does not mean abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.

Blagojevich takes office today and at any time could rescind the death penalty moratorium Ryan instituted in 2000. However, he does not have the power to reverse Ryan’s clemency decisions.

Critics have suggested Ryan might have timed the decision for blanket clemency to counter the controversy surrounding an ongoing federal investigation of the licenses-for-bribes scandal during his tenure as secretary of state.

Before announcing the commutations Saturday, Ryan praised the work of NU students and professors from the Medill School of Journalism and the Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.

“It is fitting that we are gathered here today at Northwestern University with the students, teachers, lawyers and investigators who first shed light on the sorrowful condition of Illinois’ death penalty,” he said.

“A system that’s so fragile that it depends on young journalism students is seriously flawed.”

Anthony Porter, whose exoneration caused the governor to enact the moratorium in 2000, said he planned to host a victory party Saturday night to celebrate the decision.

“I feel wonderful,” said Porter, who was released from death row in 1999 after an investigation by Medill students shed light on his innocence. “The governor did the right thing; he’s a courageous man. There’s no doubt the system is broken.”

During his address, Ryan honored Prof. Lawrence Marshall, the center’s legal director, and Protess for their work to free many of the 17 death row inmates who have been exonerated since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977.

“Never have I met anyone with more passion or a fiercer sense of justice than these two men,” Ryan said.

Gary Gauger was sentenced to death in 1994 for murdering his parents and pardoned by the governor in December after it was found that another man was guilty of his crime. He said the work of NU students and professors on his behalf restored his faith in humanity.

“With people like this, it makes you wonder why we have problems like this,” he said.

After the governor’s announcement, Protess told The Daily he plans to continue fighting to correct other unjust sentences. He said his students will shift their focus to investigating the cases of inmates who are serving life sentences and have been overlooked during the death penalty debate.

“This is not a vindication,” he said. “It’s the natural outcome of a decade of reporting on these cases. This is the result of young journalists digging until they find the truth and having a courageous governor willing to act on that.”

Robert Warden, the center’s executive director, said he hopes Ryan’s bold decision causes other states — excluding 11 that have abolished the death penalty and Maryland, which also has a death penalty moratorium — to examine the flaws in their systems.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “There are 37 other states that we’ve got to work on.”

The Daily’s Mindy Hagen and Jon Murray contributed to this report.