CHICAGO - Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin asked President Bush on Monday to consider commuting former Gov. George Ryan's 6½-year racketeering sentence to time served, standing firm on his appeal for mercy despite an outpouring of criticism. | Durbin's letter to Bush (PDF)

"This action would not pardon him of his crimes or remove the record of his conviction, but it would allow him to return to his wife and family for their remaining years," Durbin said in a letter asking Bush to free Ryan from prison.

Durbin told reporters he was moved by the plight of Ryan's wife, Lura Lynn, who is in ill health and needs her husband by her side.

"I am asking for mercy for the husband of a woman I admire very much," he said.

Ryan, 74, a one-term Republican governor, was convicted in 2006 of racketeering, fraud and other offenses, and has served one year of his federal prison sentence. It is customary for an outgoing president to issue pardons and commute sentences before leaving office, and Ryan is pinning his hopes for early release on Bush.

In his letter, Durbin described Ryan's circumstances in dismal terms.

"He has lost his state pension benefits and a commutation will not restore them," Durbin said. "He would emerge from prison facing economic uncertainty at an advanced stage of his life."

"Justice is a sword that should be tempered by compassion," Durbin said. "Further imprisonment will not, in my opinion, serve the ends of justice."

Durbin said last week that he was considering such an appeal to Bush, triggering criticism in editorial pages and elsewhere around the state.

"I can tell you in the last few days there has been an outpouring of emotion in this state over the suggestion of clemency for George Ryan - overwhelmingly negative," Durbin told a news conference at the Union League Club in downtown Chicago, a few doors from the courthouse where Ryan stood trial 2½ years ago.

Patrick M. Collins, who was chief prosecutor at the Ryan trial, said commuting a sentence should be reserved for extraordinary cases.

"My question is, what is the extraordinary circumstance we have here?" Collins said. "Yes, we have an elderly defendant but that doesn't distinguish Mr. Ryan from many other people in the federal prison population."

Collins pointed to Donald Tomczak, former No. 2 man in the Chicago water department, who pleaded guilty to racketeering and went to prison.

"He's about Mr. Ryan's age, he has a spouse at home who I'm sure loves him dearly," Collins said. "And he actually acknowledged his conducted and cooperated."

Ryan was convicted of taking part in a coverup of bribes paid in return for truck drivers licenses when he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s, using state employees to run his campaigns and steering contracts to lobbyist and cronies.

The investigation began in large part because of a November 1994 expressway tragedy outside Milwaukee in which a heavy metal mudguard-taillight assembly fell off of a truck and ended up under a van driven by the Rev. Scott Willis of Chicago. It ignited the van's gas tank, which exploded and killed six Willis children.

The truck driver took the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination when asked how he got his license. But his boss testified that he bought licenses wholesale from a woman who admitted donating bribe money to the Citizens for Ryan campaign fund.

The investigation found that such bribery was widespread and applicants were able to get licenses without passing the road safety test.

Ryan disbanded the secretary of state's unit that was investigating drivers license bribery in the wake of the Willis tragedy after his top aide, Scott Fawell, urged him to get rid of agents who asked questions about political fundraising.

One of the Ryan jurors, Kevin Rein, wrote an open letter to Durbin that was published on the op-ed page of the Chicago Sun-Times on Monday. Rein said that nothing could undo the jury's verdict.

"But should you and Mr. Bush decide to release Mr. Ryan early, it will take away a little more of the faith that the average American has in this country," he said.

"Mr. Durbin, please do the right thing," Rein closed.

Durbin said that he hadn't seen the letter.

"I can't ask the Willis family to forgive George Ryan - I can't ask anyone to forgive him," Durbin said. "But I do hope they will keep in mind that he has a loving wife who needs him."