Irishman, the last person executed in Rhode Island set to be exonerated 166 years after

“Poor Johnny Gordon”, the wronged Irish Catholic immortalized in this infamous ballad by the same name, may find some good fortune yet. That is 166 years after the Irishman was unfairly hanged on a murder charge.

State officials are looking to exonerate him after opening the cold case. The Catholic Church and the American Civil Liberties Union are lending their support.

Mr. Gordon was the last person to be hanged in Rhode Island. The death penalty was abolished 7 years after his death on February 14th 1845. In 1870 capital punishment was reinstated but abolished in the 1980s.

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee may be called upon by legislators to pardon Gordon. The governor supports this measure. “I think it's appropriate as a symbolic gesture. There could have been errors. There could have been emotional issues at play."

Anti-Irish sentiment was rampant during the late 19th century in Rhode Island. This is believed to be the motive behind Gordon’s death. History and law professor Patrick Conley commented on the social climate for Irish Catholics during this time. 'It was the temper of the times. Bigotry, hostility toward Irish Catholics was widespread.'

Gordon sought a better life in this country after escaping the potato famine in 1943. His brothers ran a profitable bar. A well-heeled Yankee mill owner, Amassa Sprague, wanted the tavern closed because he claimed his workers spent too much time at the tavern. He used his family connections in the Senate to shut down the pub. Mysteriously Sprague was murdered.

Johnny Gordon was arrested on the grounds of conspiracy to murder Sprague in retaliation for having the bar’s license revoked. The circumstances surrounding his 9 day trial were suspect. For starters the jurors were instructed by the judge to “give more weight to the Yankee jurors than the Irish ones”.

Also a gun was discovered near the body. Witnesses claim they saw the brothers carrying a weapon days before.

A prostitute testified that she heard one of the brothers vowing to kill Sprague in spite of her inability to tell any of the brothers apart. It was later revealed that this woman was in the employ of Sprague.

After 75 minutes of deliberation Gordon was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out against the wishes of the governor and the General Assembly.

His funeral prosession was attended by thousands. He is buried in a church cemetery in Pawtucket.

The effort to find Gordon innocent is important in preventing this history from repeating itself.

Father Bernard Healy echoes this sentiment. 'John Gordon was put to death because he was Catholic. It was Catholics in the 19th century. Who will it be this century?'

Source: Irishcentral.com, April 8, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old --- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century

George Junius Stinney Jr.
1929-1944

In a South Carolina prison sixty-six years ago, guards walked a 14-year-old boy, bible tucked under his arm, to the electric chair. At 5' 1" and 95 pounds, the straps didn’t fit, and an electrode was too big for his leg.

The switch was pulled and the adult sized death mask fell from George Stinney’s face. Tears streamed from his eyes. Witnesses recoiled in horror as they watched the youngest person executed in the United States in the past century die.

Now, a community activist is fighting to clear Stinney’s name, saying the young boy couldn’t have killed two girls. George Frierson, a school board member and textile inspector, believes Stinney’s confession was coerced, and that his execution was just another injustice blacks suffered in Southern courtrooms in the first half of the 1900s.

In a couple of cases like Stinney’s, petitions are being made before parole boards and courts are being asked to overturn decisions made when society’s thumb was weighing the scales of justice against blacks. These requests are buoyed for the first time in generations by money, college degrees and sometimes clout.

“I hope we see more cases like this because it help brings a sense of closure. It’s symbolic,” said Howard University law professor Frank Wu. “It’s not just important for the individuals and their families. It’s important for the entire community. Not just for African Americans, but for whites and for our democracy as a whole. What these cases show is that it is possible to achieve justice.”

Some have already achieved justice. Earlier this year, syndicated radio host Tom Joyner successfully won a posthumous pardon for two great uncles who were executed in South Carolina.

A few years ago Lena Baker, a black Georgia maid sent to the electric chair for killing a white man, received a pardon after her family pointed out she likely killed the man because he was holding her against her will.

In the Stinney case, supporters want the state to admit that officials executed the wrong person in June 1944.

Stinney was accused of killing two white girls, 11 year old Betty June Binnicker and 8 year old Mary Emma Thames, by beating them with a railroad spike then dragging their bodies to a ditch near Acolu, about five miles from Manning in central South Carolina. The girls were found a day after they disappeared following a massive manhunt. Stinney was arrested a few hours later, white men in suits taking him away. Because of the risk of a lynching, Stinney was kept at a jail 50 miles away in Columbia.

Stinney’s father, who had helped look for the girls, was fired immediately and ordered to leave his home and the sawmill where he worked. His family was told to leave town prior to the trial to avoid further retribution. An atmosphere of lynch mob hysteria hung over the courthouse. Without family visits, the 14 year old had to endure the trial and death alone.

Frierson hasn’t been able to get the case out of his head since, carrying around a thick binder of old newspaper stories and documents, including an account from an execution witness.

The sheriff at the time said Stinney admitted to the killings, but there is only his word — no written record of the confession has been found. A lawyer helping Frierson with the case figures threats of mob violence and not being able to see his parents rattled the seventh- grader.

Attorney Steve McKenzie said he has even heard one account that says detectives offered the boy ice cream once they were done.

“You’ve got to know he was going to say whatever they wanted him to say,” McKenzie said.

The court appointed Stinney an attorney — a tax commissioner preparing for a Statehouse run. In all, the trial — from jury selection to a sentence of death — lasted one day. Records indicate 1,000 people crammed the courthouse. Blacks weren’t allowed inside.

The defense called no witnesses and never filed an appeal. No one challenged the sheriff’s recollection of the confession.

“As an attorney, it just kind of haunted me, just the way the judicial system worked to this boy’s disadvantage or disfavor. It did not protect him,” said McKenzie, who is preparing court papers to ask a judge to reopen the case.

Stinney’s official court record contains less than two dozen pages, several of them arrest warrants. There is no transcript of the trial.

The lack of records, while not unusual, makes it harder for people trying to get these old convictions overturned, Wu said.

But these old cases also can have a common thread.

“Some of these cases are so egregious, so extreme that when you look at it, the prosecution really has no case either,” Wu said. “It’s apparent from what you can see that someone was railroaded.”

And sometimes, police under pressure by frightened citizens jumped to conclusions rather than conducting a thorough investigation, Wu said.

Source: Bluffton Today - 'Crusaders look to right Jim Crow justice wrongs' by Jeffrey Collins - Photo: South Carolina Department of Archives and History

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Taiwan: Advocacy group against new executions of death row convicts

An alliance opposing capital punishment said Tuesday that death row convicts should not be executed until a review on the death penalty has been completed, amid reports that another execution could take place this month following an 11-month hiatus.

Lin Hsin-yi, executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, noted that Taiwan signed 2 United Nations human rights covenants -- the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- in 2009.

"According to the enforcement rules of the two covenants, the government should complete a review within two years to decide if capital punishment violates human rights. We think executions should not be conducted before the completion of the review," Lin said.

The alliance also issued a statement later that day pointing out that the 2 U.N. covenants clearly stipulate that death row inmates should have the right to ask for amnesty or commutation.

In addition, the United Nations Human Rights Council has asked all signatories not to execute convicts on death row before related procedures concerning requests for amnesty have been completed, the alliance added.

It pointed out that the wrongful execution of an air force private a decade ago has triggered hot debate in the last few weeks on the death penalty.

President Ma Ying-jeou has also expressed the hope that executions should be cut in stages, the alliance said, urging the Ma administration not to execute convicts "rashly and immediately" before making the law more complete and comprehensive.

Earlier in the day, Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu said that "there is a chance (that an execution could be carried out) this month."

But he also said his ministry is taking a cautious approach on carrying out executions and will only execute a death row inmate if he or she has given up or exhausted all legal avenues, such as extraordinary appeals, retrials and constitutional interpretations.

According to Justice Ministry statistics, there are currently 45 death row inmates in Taiwan.

The last executions in the country were carried out April 30 last year, when 4 death row inmates were executed, the 1st since 2005.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel, March 1, 2011

Minister of justice hints at renewal of prisoner executions

Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu yesterday said an 11-month hiatus in executions could end as early as this month, a move certain to re-ignite debate over the death penalty.

“There is a chance [a death sentence could be carried out] this month,” Tseng said during a hearing at the legislature after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng expressed concern over the execution process.

Tseng said the ministry had taken a cautious approach to carrying out the death penalty and would only execute a death row inmate if he or she had exhausted all legal avenues for an appeal, such as filing an extraordinary appeal, a retrial and asking for a constitutional interpretation.

Wu said that if inmates insisted on dying and were not granted their request, that would also constitute a form of torture infringing their human rights.

The death penalty was last carried out on April 30 last year, when 4 inmates were executed, the 1st since 2005.

The moratorium on executions drew attention early last year when then-minister of justice Wang Ching-feng, a death penalty opponent, insisted on stays of execution. Wang resigned on March 11 following an outcry from victims of violent crime and their families.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday they opposed the death penalty, pointing to the execution in 1997 of air force private Chiang Kuo-ching, who was later exonerated of the crime for which he was executed by DNA and forensic evidence.

Ministry of National Defense officials apologized in January for executing Chiang for the sexual abuse and murder of a 5-year-old girl in 1996.

“In a case like this, by the time the government found out that it had done something wrong — it was already too late,” DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling said. “This is why we need a national dialogue before any more executions are carried out.”

Kuan said that the death penalty failed to get to the root of the problem and had a negative effect on Taiwan’s image.

“They [the government] have a right to do so of course, as we have not revised our laws yet, but is it necessary [President] Ma Ying-jeou, a Harvard law graduate, should be as aware of this as anyone,” Kuan said.

The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty said death row convicts should not be executed until a review on the death penalty has been completed.

Source: Taipei Times, March 1, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Taiwan's President apologizes over wrongful execution

January 31, 2011: Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou and the Ministry of National Defense (MND) formally apologised to the family of former air force private Chiang Kuo-ching.

Kuo-ching was wrongful executed for the rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in the R.O.C. Air Force Command Headquarters compound on RenAi Road in Taipei in September 1996.

Ma also instructed the MND to seek ways to restore Chiang's reputation via legal procedures and help the family get compensation.

The president also wanted the ministry to hold accountable those responsible for the mishandling of the rape-murder case that led to the soldier's wrongful indictment and execution.

This case showed that all public agencies should exert maximum caution to prevent a repeat of a similar incident and to safeguard the human rights of all citizens in the country, said Ma.

Source: China Post, January 31, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Colorado: 72 years after execution, a posthumous pardon

Joe Arridy (left)
and warden Roy Best

David Martinez didn't count the hours. That wasn't what the work was about.

"It is about making a right out of a terrible wrong in our state's history," he said.

He missed time with friends and his two daughters as he worked late defending someone he never met but considers a son.

"I refer to him as Joey," Martinez said.

Prisoner 19845, Joe Arridy was an inmate at the Colorado State Prison in Canyon City in the 1930s. He had been convicted of being an accomplice in the murder of Dorothy Drain.

Police questioned him after they found him wandering. The sheriff at the time said that Arridy mumbled a confession. Martinez doesn't believe it.

"No on else heard it and this was a sheriff who never took notes and had a very big ego," he said.

The idea of the young man recalling specifics like the sheriff claimed was also unlikely because 23-year-old Arridy functioned like a toddler.

"The State classified him as an imbecile," Martinez said.

Martinez explained that Arridy had an IQ of 46. Today, the cut off for being competent is 70.

Despite false confessions, the likelihood that Arridy was not in Pueblo at the time of the murder and an admission of guilt by someone else, Arridy was put on death row.

The man who ran the prison was Warden Roy Best. He was known as a strong-fisted man with a short fuse.

"It speaks volumes when I tell you that over Christmas the year before Joe Arridy was executed, Best took him home, he spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with his wife and his nephew," Martinez said.

The warden gave Arridy a toy train.

Most newspaper articles about Arridy showed him holding that train. He was said to have played with it ever waking minute of the day. The warden would buy new batteries for it whenever they ran out.

Arridy told reporters that he wanted to live with the warden for the rest of his life. He did.

Best walked him down the hall to the gas chamber on a Friday in 1939. By all accounts, Arridy had no idea what was going to happen.

Shortly before execution, Joe Arridy
gives away the toy train he received from
warden Roy Best to a fellow prisoner.

"All the way up to the time they put the black hood over him in the gas chamber he was smiling," Martinez said. He shakes his head while talking about it. "He did not deserve to be executed as a murderer."

After 3 years of research, Martinez compiled 600 pages in a binder.

It would end up on Gov. Bill Ritter's desk and compel him to grant the 1st posthumous pardon in Colorado history on Friday.

"I salute him for doing it. It is monumental and it brings a lot of hope for the future for the disabled community," Martinez said.

Just behind the prison tower at the state prison in Canyon City there is a place known as Woodpecker Hill. It is a place where license plates are grave markers. Arridy is buried there, now a pardoned man.

A man named Frank Agular is buried there as well. He is the man that confessed to the crime. He maintained until his execution that Arridy had nothing to do with it.

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that someone with Arridy's developmental disability could not be put on death row.

Related article: "1939: Joe Arridy, on Woodpecker Hill", Executed Today, January 6, 2011

Source: Denver 9 News, January 8, 2011