[2] His father, born in Chicago to Czech immigrants from Ronov nad Doubravou and Hrazánky, served as Illinois Attorney General and a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

[7] After graduating with an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Brown University in 1930, Kerner attended Trinity College, Cambridge in England from 1930 to 1931.

In the 33rd Division, Kerner was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Illinois Army National Guard that same year and to brigadier general in 1951.

In 1947, Kerner was appointed United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, a post which he held until 1954.

As governor, Kerner promoted economic development, education, mental health services, and equal access to jobs and housing.

[9] Kerner saw Japan as a valuable asset and thus funded the Illinois Far Eastern Movement which included many corporate delegates.

In July 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson formed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and named Kerner its chairman.

[11] He also sent a number of letters to Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Rosel H Hyde, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, pressing them for more effective radio equipment for the police force as well as improved riot training.

The letters stressed the need to not overlook the major points of the commission's findings but to use the lessons learned in the riots to further promote law and order across the nation.

Kerner was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson on March 11, 1968, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit vacated by Judge Winfred George Knoch.

The alleged bribes were in the form of stock options in 1961 that Kerner bought at a reduced price and then sold in 1968 at a profit.

Kerner began his sentence at a minimum security Federal prison hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.