Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-04-19
SULLIYAN,S SENTENCE.
An Expected Pardon That Has Not
Arrived.


Arrived.
Mat Sullivan, who was once a semi
respectable citizen of Los Angeles, is in
prison at hard labor up at Folsom for a
crime which it has been clearly shown
that he never committed. The unfor-
tunate man was sentenced on the 1st OF
February for term of three years.
About three weeks later, the facts prov
ing his innocence came out, and it was
supposed by the uninitiated that he
would be Immediately freed. He is still
hard at work breaking rock and likely to
remain so for some time. Some time
last fall Chinaman was held up and
robbed by man who the police be-
lieved from the description was Matt
Sullivan. He was arrested and tried be-
fore Judge Cheney on a charge of rob-
berry. OF course, he protested his inno-
cence, but al the culprits who appear in
court do that. He even attempted to
prove an alibi, but this is also re-
garded as a very thin dodge. The
Cninaman was sure he was the robber,
all the circumstantial evidence pointed
straight to him and a jury of his peers
decided that he was guilty.
All this ought to have been enough to
ati;fy even Matt Sullivan himself, but it
failed to do so. After his conviction,
when the Deputy Sheriff, who was tax
ing him North, asked him in all frank
ness to own up and confess that he
robbed the Chinaman, he was still eb-
stinately determined not to acknowledge
his guilt. And the friends that he had
made during his long stay in Jail while
awaiting trial, all declared that he had
protested his innocence to them. Read
ers of the HERALD will remember the
daring work done last fall by gang of
four highwaymen, headed by George
Kirby. 1t here occurred to the police to
connect this gang with the robbery of the
Chinaman, yet it was Kirby and Ger
main who did the work. Just before
Kirby was taken North, after he had re-
ceived his sentence, he confessed to the
crime and declared that the man who
was now suffering punishment was
entirely innocent. Like the members OF
the vigilance committee who went to the
widow of the man they had hung by
mistake and admitted that the laugh was
on them, the District Attorney came for
ward bravely and agreed to do his best
to get poor Sullivan out of jail. The
shortest way was to appeal to the Gov
ernor, who, when he should hear the
facts of the case, would undoubtedly
pardon the man without delay.
Accordingly Judge Cheney, before
whom the unfortunate Sullivan had been
tried, and District Attorney Kelly in
dicted joint letter to Governor Water
man, setting forth the way in which JUS
tice had looked at Matt Sullivan out of
the blind eye, and how it was necessary
that the proverbial Executive Glenn
ency" should be brought to pear in the
case.
No one knows how the Marcus D. Bor-
uck- Waterman administration conducts
business, but one thing is certain, and
that is that the request of the pardon
of the unfortunate Matt Sullivan
was coldly snubbed. The letter
of Judge Cheney and District Attorney
Kelly fattened the goats of Sacramento
town. Mat never had much money, and
his impri onment, just or otherwise, is
like the wart on the homely girls nose,
nothing to nobody" The District At
torney considers that he has done his
duty. and so does everybody else. Just
the same, however, Matt Sullivan is said
to be discontented.