During his last few days in office, outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the sentence of the 167 inmates on Illinois' death row. Immediately following his commutation, there were talks of nominating Ryan for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Could the Nobel prize and the cash award that comes with it be the real motivation for such an ambiguous clearing of the Illinois death row? Is this akin to the Clinton pardon scandal, where outgoing President Clinton issued hundreds of pardons to supposed big campaign donors?