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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1911)
y7 m r 7 v PORTLAND, OREGON. SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 21, 1911 4 J l V-' ' . ' .1 . . .v;-,r-7r; I r? . I I T I . iMl 'ffe'iv--' if Sil3::U-w Ai"y . : ' executions m va I v'tvf i i VM M it tr-i. ,1 n'.Ti .' '7:::: iV A' 1 if., f PZ" , y ; N;rv firw r,, z .YT') l 'l km Twf '' ': '''T'l"a ' IVi'irvJ!: mSS But, in common with other states that have I erguson, who, while intoxicated, shot and j .. "IV'- '4'v lV-tll'tr vZvfe.- ? found it advisable to conduct those grim cere- his employer, Alexander Carpenter, on Se I, rty t.AAyiiyy CTfT J,N,5 ' 'momala; with, as much dispatch and as little pub- ber 17, 1859. A little more than a monta J 3&i t 'TS. 17 'wtrV;'''-V.? . ty as possible, all executions are now con- on October 28, he wa3 executed in public ... . -vtf J .i'K .u "'j-'Vi'v .. rw""1 -'S:U,';;,L ducted in the yard of the state penitentiary at rude scaffold erected for the occasion. Ho V.- ; ' " " &0?l. -rf Ut Sal Lake' City. . . pened to be the one who, through the ' 7 . v , "I.. -"J cJf Ptr' . - ' , ' :-.ri?.:v::ii444iW ' -l TPlien a. .nrisomr in to b shot, he is taken oversight, was not allowed a choice of deat Piili yiiiliis xm Q ( I 1 v7 ir 5SS3 , ( 15? ii 1 1 J il ZS&:1 1 , f i: J'p-F. y . ' ;'h ' i44 ''i yfy"' ''S?? w 7 . - - lliti Utah Shooting Has Over Hanging, and Now Nevada Will Uive Her, Condemned Prisoners the Same Choice of Execution ' O UPPOSE, what t e hope will never 1 j come true, that you had been neatly convicted of a capital crime. The iiz jury..hadrdont- itspart andtbx. judge his.: fj "Yet, when the death sentence'had been pro- nounced, you were allowed your choice between hanging and shooting. Which death would you prefer?, Shooting, in all probability. In the history of Utah, where the con detnned criminal hes for a good many years been allowed to name the manner of his taking of, only one has deliberately chosen the noose. Now, in Nevada, the matter is to be T HREE of the four persons who have been hanged in Utah had no choice in the matter. Two of them were Indians, In the early davs anv wav to iret rid of an Indian was good enough. Another time the judge forgot that the law permitted a choice, and the condemned man swung without further ado. Probably he is just as well off now. Since they began keeping track of execu- tions, in the territorial days of 1855, fourteen persons have -paid the extreme penalty of the law, and as only one of them decided to swing, it shows that shooting is by far the more pop- ular form of death when the fearful alternative is forced upon a man. At first there was a third method permis- siDie Deneaamg. Jut no one ever chose it, and wiicu vinn oecame b staie in ioo n was dropped from the new laws. " Most of this, as the saying goes, is news to the rest of the country. With its Mormon ex- clusiveness. Utah has never naraded its system of legal execution. So that, in the present arti- cle which gives a complete review of the work- ng9 1"8 system, there is plenty of material for study. . To begin at the beginning, in the terri- 'torial days it was customary to execute a con- dfrrmpfl man nt tho srona nf hia nrimo Tion " the United States marshal was in charge of the - affair, assisted, by the sheriff of the county, I If tan a iimii ff .AMiaH H,H t-HA ,hnAfini to one aide of the prison, where there is a black- Been Much Preferred slill further tested, because that state has followed in the lead of Utah. Recently a law was passed which legalized bath hang ing and. shootingj at the option of the prisoner. ., . . And there is even a movement to per mit a still wider choice. If it should suc ceed, any person whose death the state demands may have the further privilege pf taking himself of by the quick, and prob ably painless, route which is provided by cyanide of potassium. A matter, this is, which is practically new to the rest of the Union. Yet it is one which, in the next few years, is likely to come in for widespread consideration. smith shop. For the occasion the everyday character ot the building is concealed by a cloth hung over the doorway. In this cloth ar fivo holps. inst. InriM enough for the firing squad to poke the noses of their rifles through and sight over them, Only twenty feet away is a chair, in which the prisoner is strapped, usually against a wooden background. When he has been made fast, the attending physician locates his heart, and over it pins a small piece of cloth or paper, Next the sheriff blindfolds th man. After that the proceedings are mcifully short. Usu- ally stepping slightly to the right, the shenJ says in a half-whisper to tho firing squad: "Ready! Aim! Fire!" ' ine rifles speaK, there is a quiyer and it is au over. The distance is so short and the marksmen so well chosen that there is .hardly a chance for a slip, as there frequently is in hangings. And, in order that the feelimrs of the men hidden behind the guns shall be spared as much as pos- siwe, only tour ot the ti rifles are loaded. Thus each man who is handed a weapon is priv- ileged to suppose that he received the unloaded firun. Certainly no one can gainsay .him, for no one knows. Tn niflTkpd crtntrsst. to this short, husinpssu like method were the early executions, whether shootings or hangings. - The first white man to nav fhA riAaf h ruina tv in Iran naa I hnnma II killed ptem- later, on a hap- udge's h, aud hia last words from the scaffold were in the xol- f. 1865 Two tadlatis ww twigred at Cedar V&Uay, thirty mUea aonthwaat of Salt Laic City, for the murder of William and Warren Weeks, on of Mormon Blahop Weeka, Auftut I, 1854. . a , : 1869 Thomas H. Ferg-uaon hang-ed Ootofcor 28 a block east of tha old observation tower s the north bench, Salt Lake City, for the murder of his employer, Alexander Carpenter, Septem ber 17. 185. , 1881 William Ooelcroft shot In the countr courthouse lnclosore, Salt Lake City, Septem- ber 21. for the murder of Kooert urown. , 1862 Jason Luoe shot In Salt Lake City for killing' his friend on Main street. 1862 A man was shot In the county Jail yard at Tooele for murder. 1869 Chauncey W. Millard shot tn the. Provo City Jail yard, January St. for the willful murdtr of a stranger rldinsr In a wagon alonic the west side of Utah lake. He shot his victim. for the "fun of the thing-." scene of the Mountain Meadows massacre xrf his Dart In that awful crime. 1878 Wallace WMkerson shot May II In the OOUuty jail yaru i suvu ivr tuv uimuor vj. . . ,a stockman hamed Baxter jb the shore of UtaJxfl lake. 1887 Frederick Hopt COw Aug-utt 11 at. the state penitentiary seven years after he ne,i; county sheriff. His crime was committed Julyy 3, 1880. 1894 Enoch Davis shofSeptember 14 In Dry Hollow canvon. near LehL for wile murden. f county Jail- InctosufV Salt LakeCUyrcfiw. tav-f rl isoRrhttrl.il Thlede hantred Aurust T In t&ei 1896 Patrick Cougrhlin shot December 15. I the murder of ex-Marshal Dawes, of Wyoming' and Constable Stags, of Echo, Summit county., tnree miles norm or w uuuruu, nruu ui'uuijr, lor Utah. - 191 the s murdi Utah. k - 1B02 Peter Mortensen shot November! the state penitentiary. lt Lake City, for- 1 murder of James R. Hay, December 16. 190L at J Forest Dale 1904 Frank P. Rose ehot April 22 at the) state penitentiary for the murder ot his wtf In Salt Lake City, lowing denunciation : "I'wa3 tried by the statute of -Utah terrV tory, which gives every doomed man the priv lege of being shot, beheaded or hanged, " But was it gffipn me t , It was not. All Judge Sin clair wanted was to sentence some one to; b hanged. Then he was willing to leave tho terri tory; and he had too much whisky in his head to know the day he sentenced me to be executed on referring to the fact that the judge had at firs set a date which fell on Sunday, and would'not have known it had it not been for the; people of Utah laughing at him. It woulT have been on a Sunday. A nice judge to send a man to any country!" . , Jvot until 1896, when Charles Thiede chose the noosp as the manner in which he should pay the penalty for wife murder, was there another hanging in Utah; since then there has been' none. The first legal shooting oocurred in the county courthouse yard, Salt Lake City, Satur- day afternoon, September 21, 1861. William Cockroft was the victim. He quarreled with Robert Brown over the use of water for fryiga- tion purposes, a subject that caused much bitter feeling in the early daja of the west and still ia trmililoorm Knno nf enntontinn. "Rrnam va ' ambushed and shot in the back. Cockroft was calm as he was placed in a chair and prepared fcr the end. ' His eXeotK tioners, it is-supposod, did their work well; there is no record to the contrary. ' Just before the next man was shot he-made a cncuk i-n y& aalA tV,at li. tiAnsil Ka shedding of his blood would atone for hU wick" . edness and prove an object lesson for. others.',' ll ... A nnn . . n . I n:n I vaa lla . t camc'frora a good family, but fell in with a way ; ward crowd and longed for a wild life on the range, where the law had few restrictions, . oo he got- an outfit and went, to the AJdergulclj country, then a mecca for roving toughs, In one-'of hia many fights he was, bested and couU , never rot over thn atinar of his humilie tion. ' . ' ' -; ' (continued OJf !N8lDe PAQE) 4 f
