The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-09-04
KoCCIs ESCAPES.
Court of Pardons Commute His Sem
tence to Life EmprisO nmemt.

tence to Life imprisonment.
TRENTON, Sept. 4, 1S94-The Court of
Pardons met this morning and commuted
the sentence of John Koccis. who was
to have been hung on Thursday, to i'm
prisonment for life. Koccis shot Mary
Majollis, with whom he had been living,
in 1892.
The principal reason for the commu-
tation was an affidavit by F. J. Nekarda,
Newark lawyer, who came to this coun-
try from the Province of Slovak, in Aus
tria, of which Koccis was native.
Nekarda, after setting forth the insti-
tutions in Austria and America, in which
he was educated. says in his affidavit
that he visited Joseph Hayter, New
Brunswick barber who acted as in
terpreter at Koccis' trial. and found that
he was unable to converse intelligently
in the Slavok dialect. and that Hayter
was a Pole, who had been in this coun-
try since a boy
Hayter acknowledged that he under
stood the Slavok dialect fmperfectly, and
had never studied it. There was large
delegation of Catholic priests at the
meeting this morning in behalf of Koccis.
NEW GALLONS ERECTED.
execution were nearly completed. Messrs.
Curran G. Lynch, the contractors, yes
terday afternoon erected the scaffold on
the same spot as that upon which Wal
witz was executed was located. The new
scaffold is a great improvement upon
the clumsy affair used in the Walwitz
execution. It is made of yellow pine
and consists of platform 8 feet above
49, aa1la 11xyQ faa
2 inches wide, supported by four heavy
we'll braced timbers mortised into a
frame resting on the ground. The plat
form is reached by twelve steps at the
end The platform, for a width of 2
feet 8 inches, is permanent, the remain
der consisting of two trap doors open
ing downward. The doors, or drops, are
held up by iron bolts worked by a lever
and rope. The drops are made of two
thicknesses of inch boards, two upright
timbers sixteen feet high and strongly
braced support a cross beam eight feet
above the platform. A hole is bored
through the centre of the cross-beam
and a groove runs along the top of the
beam to cleat in the upright. To this
cleat the rope is fastened, and passing
through the groove and hole is noosed
at the end.
Three men can be hanged on the scaf-
fold at the same time if necessary. When
the moose is placed around the neck of
the condemned man he win be stand
ing on the centre of the trap-doors, a
very slight pull on the rope attached to
their fastenings will cause them to drop
from under him and he will fall about
six feet, being still two feet from the
ground. The doors in dropping will fly
against the side beams, where automatic
catches will hold them from swinging.
TRIAL TRIP.
A trial of the apparatus was given yes
terday and it worked satisfactorily.
Coroner Bower gave the rope just a
slight pull and both bolts shot back like
flash and the doors dropped. The
scaffold remains unpainted. Crowds of
people thronged the rear entrance of
the Jail as the different parts of the
scaffold were being taken inside the
building. Scarcely any morse was made
in putting the scaffold together, conse-
quently Koccis knew nothing of the
deadly preparations that were being
made. to launch him into eternity on
Thursday morning.
The reporter visited Kocc1s, who
shook hands cordially and showed him
an old photograph of himself. Mary
| Magollis, the woman whom he killed,
and his two children. On Sunday after
| noon Deputy Warden Burns two bright
! little children. with Mrs. O'Hara. the
| kindly matron, spent several hours
with the doomed man. He was so
pleased that he cried for very joy.
In speaking of the visit to the re-