Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-05-05


advice, they and not he are respon-
sible for the error.
From such an examination as we
have been able to give to the evil
dence on which Thomasson was
convicted, we should say that the
circumstantial part of it without the
defendants admissions, were suffici-
ent to convict him; but ours is not
the opinion of an expert; it is more
to the purpose to say that it seemed
so to the jury, who convicted him,
to the Judge who sentenced him on
that conviction, and to the judges of
of the Supreme Court who reviewed
the evidence upon appeal; the lat
ter gentlemen will hardly alIege
that they confirmed the judgement
of the lower court without very
careful sitting of the evidence, and
after unanimous confirmation of
that sentence, being appealed to by
persons acting in the interest Of the
defendant, they express themselves
as follows:
JACKSON, April, lS77.-Hon. Jas. ID. Por-
ter. In the case of Thomasson for murder
in the first degree, decided at the last term of
the Supreme Court at Nashville, the death
sentence was pronounced 20 be executed on
the 9th of this month. We are satisfied
that the proof justified ana required the
Judgment, yet, in view OF the fact that there
is no possibility of redress If there should
be injustice i'll thw case after the execution
of tine sentence and of posi- bilfty ofnlis-
take, we think 1t our duty to ask of you
a communication or temporary respite Of the
death sentence. The suspicious character OF
/ some ofthe evidence ana some unexplained
/ facts in the record lead us to feel that,
/ though not a ground of reversal OF the acts
4 of the court and jury, they may justly APP
} peal to executive discretion to prevent
/ merely possible injustice which n court
/ could not guard against without establish
/ ing precedent precluding all capital pun
/ ishment, Very respectfully,
/ J. h. HEIsRELI, Atty Gen.
RoBr MCFARLAND, Judge.
| THOs. j. FREEMAN,
JAS. w. DEADRICK,
JOHN L. l.. SSEED.
We confess that this staggers It's,
| we fail to see how these exalted jul
dietary officers could have been JUS
titled, both in the judgment they
pronounced on the bench and in the
appeal they made afterwards; ifthere
was supicious character attaching
to some of the evidence, and if there
were unexplained facts in the re-
cord, these were certainly argued by
counsel and thoroughly sifted before
the court when theappeal was made,
and it is inconceivable that a judg-
ment was given under such solemn
sanctions without their being min
utely sifted and carefully weighed.
If they were of q nature to leave
reasonable doubt on the minds Of
the judges, the decision ought never
to have been given, if not the adj
dress to the Governor ought never
to have been written. Judge Tur-
ney seems to have been of this OPP
pinion as he refused to sign the adj
dress to the Governor.
Whatever may be the conclusion
in this dilema the broad fact re-
mains that an execution for murder
is almost an unheard of thing in
Tennessee, unless it be done in the
lawless way lately witnessed in
Dover.
We have already condemned this
method as indefensible and we adj
here to our opinion, at the same
time we cannot shut our eyes to the
fact that while the conviction re-
mains on the popular mind thatius-
tice cannot be done in our courts in
case of murder, the wild and lawless
method we are deprecatingw will con-
tinue to startle and shock our
law abiding people at intervals.
Whether the remedy is to consist in
change of law or an improved adj
ministratiOn OF it, we are not suf-
ficiently informed to state, it is the
business ofour leadingjurists to dose.
In the Columbia case however, we
are quite satisfied that it is the adj
minstratiOn and not the law which
is at fault.