The border vidette., 1908-07-04
INNOCENCE INDICATED.
Young NO&aIes Boy Granted Pardon
 After Four Long Years.

His life broken by the mistake of jury, William Gourdin left Yuma yesterday (June 1S) for Tue son, the victim of an error for which there is no atonement. Gourdin is an illustration of the cruel and irreparable injury some times inflicted by purely circum- stantial evidence. When convicted of larceny Tn Cochise county in December, 1904, the evidence of his guilt seeming overwhelming. Yes terday he was liberated from the penitentiary here upon proof posit- i've that he not only did not com nit the crime for which he already has served four of a ten years sen tence, but was not even in the locality of the crime at that time. Gourdin is a Mexican, and as he is now only 23 years of age, life may yet open fair vistas before him and time heal the hurt of the deep in justice he has suffered - Yuma Correspondent of the Arizona Ga Zette.
 On June 2Oth, the Oasis contain ed the following regarding the young mans return to Nogales, where he has large number of friends none of whom believe hlm guilty of the offense for which he was sent to prison:
 Yesterday evening there return ed home from Yuma Mr. William Gourdin, young man born and raised in Nogales, ,who was pardon ed from the penitentiary Tuesday and released Thursday, after serv ing nearly four years of sentence of ten years for an offense of which he would have never been convlct ed had he been defended properly at his trial. It was possible to have proved a complete a libi, and when the case was brought to at tention of Governor Kibbey and ence that should have been pre- scented at the trial. the granting of the pardon was the matter of only a few days. The offense charged was highway robbery. In Septem- Der, 1904, a vegetable peddler was held up in the Middle Pass of the Dragoon mountains, in Cochise county, and robbed by two men masked and riding horseback. He identified Gourdin as one of the men, and a certain blue roan horse owned by one Marrujo, at Black Diamond, as having been hIs mount. Gourdin had witnesses in court to prove that he was near Black Diamond at the time of the robbery and returned to the place within an hour after the robbery occurred, which he would not have done had he been at the scene of the crime; while Marrujo was put on the stand to prove that his horse had not been outside of his corral all day. With all that kind of evidence the lawyer the lad Che was only seventeen years old) had employed, could not lay the foun- dation to get it before the jury; it was ruled out, and the boy was convicted. Then the lawyer de- lending CD him did not know enough to move for new trial or give notice of appeal, and when his friends were informed of the situa tion the time for notice of appeal had lapsed, and the boy was in the penitentiary with the door closed. Then his friends set about getting a pardon, and several essayed se- curing one, but none of them seem ed to know how to work. A few months ago Colonel Bird of The Oasis, took the matter in hand, and found what was necessary. Going 10 Cochise county he gathered the evidence, presented it to the jurors, and Judge Doan, got their recom mendation for a pardon, and the