Ronald Ryan

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Ronald Joseph Ryan (c. 21 February 1925 - 3 February 1967) was the last person to be legally executed in Australia.

Contents 1 Life 2 Innocent? 3 Who shot Hodson? 4 Last 'legal' execution in Australia 5 The Last of The Ryans 6 Cited References 7 See also 8 External links

[edit] Life

Ronald Ryan was born in Melbourne's inner suburb of Carlton, to John (Big Jack) and Cecilia Ryan (nee Young). At the time of Ryan's birth in 1925, his mother was separated but still legally married to George Harry Thompson. The couple had separated in 1915 when Thompson left to fight the Great War. The relationship never resumed. Ryan's parents formed a relationship in 1924 and married after Thompson's death in 1927 from a car accident. In 1936 Ryan was confirmed in the Catholic Church. He took as his confirmation name Joseph, and then became known as Ronald Joseph Ryan.

Born into dire poverty, Ryan was a primary school student when state authorities declared him a "neglected child" and subsequently he was sent to Rupertswood Boys Home in Sunbury. At age 14, Ronald absconded from Rupertswood, and went to live in Balranald, New South Wales, where he lived and worked to support his mother and three sisters. At the age of 23 he returned to Melbourne.

Ryan was a forestry worker, sleeper-cutter, champion cyclist and small-time criminal. His social standing improved when he married the daughter of the Mayor of the middle class Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, with whom he had three daughters. He was sent to Bendigo Prison for the first time in 1960 for factory-breaking and stealing offences. His time in prison was productive and he exhibited a disciplined approach to study, completing his Matriculation Certificate (year 12).

Ryan was described by the people who knew him as a likable character with dignity and self-respect. He was regarded by the authorities as a model prisoner. However, upon his release from prison and on parole in 1963, he turned to gambling and quickly returned to crime after convictions for multiple counts of shop-breaking and a weapons offence. In 1964 he was sentenced to 14 years for armed robbery and other offences.

After Ryan was informed that his wife was filing for divorce, Ryan decided to escape from prison and take his family and live in Brazil where there was no extradition treaty with Australia. On 19 December 1965, in a highly organised and audacious plan, Ryan and fellow prisoner Peter John Walker escaped from Pentridge Prison after Ryan overpowered a prison guard, Helmut Lange, and took his rifle.

The prison alarm was raised, indicating an escape. Armed prison guards came out onto the street, on prison walls and on top of prison guard towers. In scenes of noise and confusion, a loud whip-like crack of a single shot was heard, and a prison officer, George Hodson (closely running after Walker, not far from Ryan) fell to the ground. He had been struck by a single bullet, travelling from front to back in a downward trajectory. The bullet had exited through Hodson's back, about an inch lower than the point of entry in his shoulder.

Based on Hodson's injuries, Ryan's defence counsel argued at his subsequent trial for murder that the ballistics evidence indicated that the fatal bullet entered Hodson's (shoulder) body at such a downward trajectory angle that Ryan (5 feet 8 inches (1.7 m) tall) would have had to have been 8 feet 6 inches (2.55 m) tall to have fired the shot. But the prosecution argued that Hodson (6 feel 1 inch (1.825 m) tall) could have been running in a stooped position, thus accounting for the bullet's fatal downward trajectory angle of entry.

A third prison warder, Robert Paterson, standing on a wall outside the prison (allegedly aiming at Ryan) admitted, and testified in court, to firing a shot. Fourteen eyewitnesses testified in court that they heard only one shot - no person heard two shots fired. If Ryan had also fired a shot, it is likely that at least one person would have heard two shots. All fourteen persons testified at hearing only one shot.^[1]

Ryan and Walker successfully eluded their pursuers outside Pentridge and escaped using a car they commandeered outside the prison. After a massive police manhunt, daily front-page news articles claiming that Ryan had shot and killed Hodson, and widespread community fear, Ryan and Walker were re-captured in the Sydney suburb of Concord, after 19 days on the run. The two were extradited back to Melbourne where they were jointly tried for the murder of George Hodson. Walker was later also tried for the shooting murder of an associate during the period when he and Ryan were at large. After a trial in the Victorian Supreme Court lasting twelve sitting days, with many inconsistencies of evidence, Ryan was convicted of the murder of Hodson, and sentenced to death by Justice John Starke, the mandatory sentence at that time. Walker was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.^[2][3]

According to the 12-man jurors, they evidently thought that the death sentence would be commuted as had happened in the previous 35 death penalties cases since 1951. According to one jury member's later account of the discussions in the jury room, not one member of the jury thought that Ryan would be executed. The jury had originally decided on a not-guilty verdict, but two jury members who thought Ryan was guilty convinced the others to bring in a guilty verdict. They were so sure that the death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment, that they did not even discuss the issue of making a recommendation for mercy along with their guilty verdict.

When it became apparent that the Liberal premier Mr (later Sir Henry) Bolte intended to proceed with the execution, a secret eleventh-hour plea for mercy was made by four jury members who had found Ryan guilty of murder. They sent petitioning letters to the Victorian governor, stating that in reaching their verdict, they had believed that capital punishment had been abolished in Victoria and requesting that the governor exercise the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and commute Ryan's sentence of death.

Bolte denied all requests for mercy and was determined Ryan would hang. The approaching execution of Ryan prompted widespread protests in Victoria and elsewhere around the country.^[4]

A nationwide three-minute silence was observed at the exact time that Ryan was hanged.

Newspapers in Melbourne, traditionally supporters of the Bolte government, deserted him on the issue and ran a campaign of spirited opposition on the grounds that the death penalty was barbaric. There is some evidence that, for premier Bolte, Ryan's execution was an opportunity for him to re-assert his political authority after he had been thwarted by legal manouevres to ensure the execution of Robert Peter Tait in 1962.

On the last night before his execution, Ryan wrote letters to his family and to those who had fought tirelessly on his behalf. Ryan maintained his innocence to the end.

All calls for clemency, petitions and protests were to no avail. Ryan was hanged in 'D' Division at Pentridge Prison at 8.00 AM on Friday 3 February 1967. Around three thousand protesters had gathered outside the prison. Several media journalists were invited to view the hanging. Later that day, Ryan's body was buried in an unmarked grave within the "D" Division prison facility. The exact location of Ryan's grave has never been released by the authorities.^[5][6]

While it was not successful in averting Ryan’s execution, the protest campaign to save Ryan from the gallows ensured that governments around Australia regarded it as too difficult politically to ever resort to the death penalty again. Within twenty years, capital punishment would be abolished federally and in all state and territory jurisdictions. In 1985, Australia officially abolished capital punishment.

Today, almost all federal and state politicians from all political parties are opposed to the reintroduction of capital punishment in Australia, for all crimes. Whether these politicians are representative of their voters is less clear. In recent years, Australian politicians (both government and opposition) have made various comments that have changed Australia's opposition to the death penalty. The implications of this shift in Australian policy have not yet been fully explored or debated.[1]

[edit] Innocent?

Evidence pointing to the innocence of Ronald Ryan may have gone to the grave with a prison warder who committed suicide by shooting himself in the head whilst on duty at Pentridge Prison, two years after Ryan was hanged. It is alleged that a close friend of Lange (who wanted to remain anonymous) claimed Lange had been troubled since the escape. Lange confessed to finding the missing bullet in the prison guard tower, and told his friend he had made an official report to prison authorities at the time, attaching the missing bullet. But Lange had been ordered by "someone" to make a new statement, excluding any reference to the missing bullet. Fearing for his job, Lange made a new statement. Later, Lange testified in court that he did not see a bullet.

Newly revealed information suggests that Helmut Lange may have known that Ryan was innocent, and that Lange was told by prison authorities to change his statement of what happened during the prison escape, which led to the shooting death of George Hodson.^[7]

Nineteen years after Ryan's execution, a prison officer, Doug Pascoe, confessed that he fired a shot during Ryan's escape bid. Pascoe believes his shot may have accidentally killed his fellow prison officer, Hodson. Pascoe had not told anyone that he fired a shot during the escape because at that time, "I was a 23-year-old coward". In 1986, he tried to tell his story but his claims were discredited by the authorities.

According to Ryan's defence lawyer Dr Philip Opas QC, Ryan's rifle was never scientifically tested. There was no proof that Ryan's rifle had been fired. The fatal bullet was never found. The spent cartridge, also, was never found. It was never proven that the fatal bullet came from the weapon in Ryan's possession.^{[8][9][10][11]}

On 1 March 2004, in an interview with the Australian coalition against death penalty (acadp) Dr Opas said, "I want to put the record straight. I want the truth told about Ronald Ryan - that an innocent man went to the gallows. I want the truth to be made available to everyone, for anyone young and old, who may want to do research into Ryan's case or research on the issue of capital punishment. I will go to my grave firmly of the opinion that Ronald Ryan did not commit murder. I refuse to believe that at any time he told anyone that he did."

In a letter "Opas on Ryan" to The Victorian Bar Association and published in The Bar News in Spring 2002, Dr Opas responds to a recently made assertion by person/s that Ryan was guilty, having verbally confessed to firing the shot that killed Hodson. This alleged assertion has emerged 35 years after Ryan was hanged. Dr Opas vehemently disagrees with this assertion and refuses to believe that at any time did Ryan confess to anyone that he fired a shot. Ryan gave evidence and swore that he did not fire at Hodson. He denied firing a shot at all. He denied the so-called verbal confessions said to have been made by him. Dr Opas says the last words Ryan said to him were, “We’ve all got to go sometime, but I don’t want to go this way for something I didn’t do.” [2]

Dr Opas explains in detail the facts, which he claims cannot lie - which cannot be mistaken - that not only did Ryan not fire a shot, but he could not have fired a shot.^[12]

Mr. Justice Starke the judge at Ryan's trial, and a committed abolitionist, was convinced of Ryan's guilt but did not agree Ryan should hang. Until his death in 1992, Starke remained troubled about Ryan's hanging and would often ask his colleagues if they thought he did the right thing.

[edit] Who shot Hodson?

The events surrounding the prison escape would result in the many unexplained incidents, which were to cast doubt on Ryan's guilt. Police testified in court, that the M1 rifle stolen by Ryan "looked as if" it had been fired, but it had not been scientifically examined. There was no evidence of proof that Ryan's M1 rifle had been fired. All the bullets in Ryan's M1 rifle were accounted for. Ryan could not operate the M1 rifle stolen from Helmut Lange's guard tower.

[edit] Last 'legal' execution in Australia

The Last Man Hanged is a dramatised documentary based on research, with a mixture of re-creating interviews and archival material dipicting the events leading up to the hanging of Ronald Joseph Ryan in Pentridge Prison. What evolves in the documentary is a powerful and emotional statement about capital punishment - a universal story about the social and political pressures that can lead a government to take the life of a human being and the story of a complex Ronald Ryan, who was as much a victim of politics as the victims of society he had violated - a man who believed ultimately he had to die.

[edit] The Last of The Ryans

Based on meticulous research, The Last of The Ryans tells the true story of Ronald Ryan - the man, the prison escape, the trial, the political hanging that the Premier, Henry Bolte, had to have to win an election, and the execution. Bolte saw the case as a contest of wills and brushed aside all protests, appeals, petitions, including one signed by seven of the jurors who sat on the Ryan case.

Click here to preview a segment from The Last of The Ryans [3]

[edit] Cited References

1. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/23_Haunted.gif
2. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/7_RyanGuilty.jpg
3. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/15_RyanMother.gif
4. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/25_Vigil.jpg
5. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/16_RyanDeath.gif
6. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/14_Witness.gif
7. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/12_RyanSecret.gif
8. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/10_OpasRyanStory.gif
9. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/11_RyanCase.gif
10. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/22_Casewontdie.jpg
11. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/vicbar_oral/images/opas/23_Haunted.gif
12. ^ http://www.vicbar.com.au/pdf/Bar%20News%20PDF%20files/Spring%202002/Correspondance.pdf

[edit] See also

• Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Who Hung Ronald Ryan?] (A Documentary Film on The Life and Execution of Ronald Ryan - released 1987]
• Bennett, Bill; The Last Man Hanged (The Documentary Film on Ronald Ryan - Guilty or Innocent?) [Released 1993 by Ronin Films]
• Brennan, Richard; The Last Of The Ryans (A movie based on the story of Ronald Ryan) [Released 1997]
• Dickens, Barry; Remember Ronald Ryan (A book/dramatic play based on the story of Ronald Ryan) [published 1994]
• Dickens, Barry; Guts and Pity - The Hanging that ended Capital Punishment in Australia [published 1996]
• Jones, Barry; The Penalty is Death [published 1968] Sun Books
• Lowe, David; Odd Man Out (The Life and Death Story of Ronald Ryan) [published 1993]
• Norden, Fr. Peter; Remembering a hanging (2007 reflection by Fr Peter Norden SJ AO - priest of the parish Ryan belonged to.)
• Dr Philip Opas, QC; The Innocence of Ronald Ryan (published 2002 by The Victorian Criminal Bar Association)
• Richards, Mike; The Hanged Man - The Life and Death of Ronald Ryan Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2002 [ISBN 0-908011-94-6]
• Slattery, Bernard & Deidre; Hanging of Ronald Ryan (A Book on Capital Punishment and The Victorian Community) [published 1994]

[edit] External links

• Ronin Films (The Last Man Hanged)
• Australian Coalition Against Death Penalty (ACADP)
• Amnesty International (Links to worldwide Anti-Death Penalty Organisations)
• NSW Council for Civil Liberties (The Death Penalty)
• Asia Death Penalty blog monitors death penalty issues in Australia and Asia