Judge Harold Ryan Succumbs To Cancer Known For Capping Prison Population, N-Waste Ban

U.S. District Judge Harold Ryan, who capped the population of Idaho’s prison system and at least temporarily barred shipments of nuclear waste into the state, died Monday at his Boise home after a battle with cancer. He was 71.

Ryan was a two-term state senator from Weiser in the mid-1960s and a colleague of former Republican U.S. Sen. James McClure, who played an integral role in his appointment by President Reagan to the federal judiciary in December 1981.

“I don’t know where to start or where to stop,” McClure said Monday evening from his home in Washington, D.C. “Hal was a close friend and a remarkable human being.”

Graveside services were scheduled at 1 p.m. Thursday at Boise’s Morris Hill Cemetery, followed by memorial services at the Cathedral of the Rockies.

Ryan was born June 17, 1923, in Weiser. He attended the University of Idaho, the University of Washington, Notre Dame and the University of Idaho College of Law. He served in the Navy during World War II, and started practicing law in Weiser with his father, Frank D. Ryan, in 1950.

He was Washington County prosecutor from 1951 to 1952.

As a federal judge in the mid1980s, Ryan ruled in favor of inmate Walter “Bud” Balla and others that conditions in the state prison violated their constitutional rights. He imposed caps on the penitentiary’s inmate population that forced lawmakers and then-Gov. Cecil Andrus to divert more than $20 million for construction of a new maximumsecurity prison.

The inmate restrictions remain in place and the state today is engaged in a nearly $40 million prison expansion program.

“He did exactly what I knew he would do,” said McClure, who served with Ryan in the Idaho Senate. “Not in the final outcome, but what the law said.”

In the spring of 1993, after taking semi-retired senior status several months earlier, Ryan ruled in favor of the state of Idaho in its longrunning battle with the federal government over the storage of nuclear waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

In a settlement to avoid a harsher outcome, the federal government agreed to cease all but a handful of waste shipments to the INEL until a full-scale environmental impact statement was developed. It is scheduled to be completed this summer.

Ryan was extremely harsh in his criticism of the government in the ruling that prompted the settlement.

“He became absolutely convinced that the federal government had not done what should have been done, and that it had not been candid about what had been done,” McClure said.

Idaho 6th District Judge Lynn Winmill of Pocatello recently was selected by President Clinton to fill the vacancy on the federal bench created when Ryan took senior status more than two years ago.

He awaits formal nomination and Senate confirmation.

Ryan is survived by his wife of 34 years, the former Ann Dagres; three sons, a sister, a granddaughter and a step-grandson.