Former Gov. George Ryan is still in prison, but back in the news.

Former Gov. George Ryan hasn't had much to say since he was convicted on corruption-related charges and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison.

Ignoring requests for prison interviews, he prefers to let his lawyers argue his cause in public. But Ryan is back in the news, courtesy of year-old deposition he gave in a legal case that has just been released, and he's just as crusty and short-tempered as he always was.

He deserves some credit for not being a cry-baby. No one will catch Ryan wallowing in self-pity, although the lifelong pol was willing to state the obvious prison life is no picnic.

"I mean you don't know what (freedom) is all about until they take it away from you," Ryan told the lawyer conducting the deposition.

Ryan showed traces of humor, inviting the lawyer to stay for a prison lunch of bologna.

"A little prison food would probably be good for all of you," he said.

Ryan also complained that the time allotted for the deposition is "screwing up my day off." A day off in prison. Well, you probably have to be there to understand.

But the old Ryan also was on display, the guy who bragged about how he came to issuing the pardons that cleared out death row in Illinois.

"I just used my judgment like I did on a lot of things. ... That's what's called leadership," he said.

Ryan also used his judgment when it came to engaging in criminal behavior while he was secretary of state and governor. But no one ever described his conduct as "leadership" in that regard.

Ryan remained not just defensive, but hostile, when questions were raised about his reasons for involving himself so deeply in the death penalty issue and commuting the sentences of state inmates facing the death penalty. He claimed it had nothing to do with the pending federal investigation in which he was eventually convicted.

"I'm about ready to walk out of here. ... I'm not going to put up with that," Ryan replied, maintaining that he was concerned with righting grievous wrongs, not establishing a favorable image for himself with potential jurors as he faced indictment.

No one, of course, will ever know Ryan's motive for delving so deeply into the death penalty issue. Clearly, the state's capital punishment system was badly flawed, and there's no undoing a wrongful execution. But as a professed lifelong supporter of capital punishment, Ryan was an unlikely candidate to become a death penalty abolitionist.

Yet that issue, along with his undeniable criminality, remain his legacy as the state's governor. Obviously, it's a touchy subject for him as he serves his time at a prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Approaching 80, Ryan still is fighting to preserve what's left of his reputation.