Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-04-13
% PARDONS SENT
TO GOVERNOR SMITH
COMPLETE LIST OF RECOMNIEN-
DATIONS FOR CLEMENCY AND
FOR E-BLASSENGAME
GETS A PAROLE.

| Twenty-eight out of 172 clemency petit
/ tions heard by the prison board during
! the passed week have been passed up TO
! Governor Smith with the favorable rec
j ommendation of the board.
! Some rs of the remaining petitions, says
! Judge Turner, chairman of the ooard'
were definitely turned down. And those
that are left were not acted upon. They
/ were passed"
Saturday afternoon the commission
sent up to the governor it's recommended
| lions in all the cases which it had given
its favor Monday those will be followed
by the petitions which the commission
decided to decline.
AS predicted exclusively in The Jour
nal of Thursday, John Blassengame, OF
| Murray county, in whose behalf so many
citizens of that county and Fulton and
other parts of the state have interested
themselves with the Kings daughters,
| will not be pardoned. He gets parole
recommendation from the prison commits
sion, and Governor Smith will, in all like
! Iihood, not exceed that recommendation.
The governors practice is never to go
| beyond the favorable action. He some
times acts favorably, however, when the
prison commission declines to recommend
| clemency.
Blassengame was convicted of the muir
der of Will Osborne in Murray county in
1903, and was sentenced in August of
that year to serve a life term in the pen
itentiary. Two years later the petition
| was filed on which the commission has
just recommended his parole. The petit
tion was definitely declined by the board
in 1908, but has been reconsidered. Bias
| sengame, having served more than the
minimum sentence fixed by law for the
crime for which he was convicted, can go
| free.
Saturdays consignment of recommen-
dations represents the first big batch Of
paroles that the prison commission has
forwarded to the governor. Only three
paroles are in existence so far. The law
which makes possible these conditional
pardons'' was enacted by thhe last legis-
lature on Sept. 8, 1908.
PardOns Favored
Here is a full and exclusive list of the
recommendations that the commission
sent to the governor. The prisoners
name is shown first; then the county in
which the conviction was secured, the
crime proven, and the sentence
Will Morgan, Jasper burglary; ten
years.
Helen Drew, Mitchell. misdemeanor; II
months.
Light Lockett, Polk, voluntary man
Nat Carswell. Fulton. burglary; S
| years.
Felix Bell, oglethorpe, burglary; 20
years.
Sally Johnson, Hart, attempt to murder,
Is months. \
James CantreI Murray, voluntary
manslaughter; years
Tobias Iovett, Coweta, selling whisky;
II months
Harmon Knight Terrell, voluntary man
slaughter; 8 years.
Harry Paschal Columbia, assault to
murder; 5 years
Searey Giles. Butts, involuntary man.
slaughter; years.
In all Of the foregoing cases the prison
commission recommended that the gov
ernor commute the prisoners sentences
to present service. 1t is worthy of note
that among them are no life prisoners.
| They are to be found among the follow
ing. whom the commission recommended
to the governor for parole or conditional
pardon" during good behavior:
For Parole
Ashley McDufie, Wilcox, voluntary
manslaughter; 10 years.
w. Eugene Rumney Bibb, bigamy; 4
years.
Andy Hollinsworth. Liberty. murder:
life.
John Blassengame, Murray, murder;
life
Peter Clarke. Randolph, voluntary man.
| slaughter; 10 years.
Lum Bradley, Paulding, murder; life.
Floyd Payne, Jackson, robbery; 20
years.
Allen Skies. Telfair. murder; life.
George Gardner, Cobb, assault to MUIR
der, ten years.
Thomas Kemp, Marion, murder, life.
Homer Nelson, Fulton, assault to
murder, four years.
| Harold Collins, fulton, robbery, ten
years
A. L. Frierson, Lowndes, voluntary
manslaughter, ten years
| Paul Lawson, Burke, murder, life.
Joe Holt, Polk. burglary, six years.
| VIII Tinsley, Terrell, assault to MUIR
der, three years.
Interesting Cases
For twenty-eignt years Paul Lawson
has been in the penitentiary-since
1881, when he was sentenced. His pc
tition had been on file since 1904, when,
five years old, it received the favor of
the prison commission and the recon-
mendatiop of that body for Lawson's
parole.
Lum Bradley, another of the paroled
convicts, is 22 years old. In 1904,
when he was II years old, he killed a
! grown man much older than himself.
Thomas Kemp, one of the white men
who get paroles, has been in the peni-
| Tertiary for ten years.
| Allen Skies, one of the negroes slated
for a parole, has spent twenty years in
the penitentiary.
Floyd Payne, another negro who is
| recommended for parole, has served six
| years on twenty-year sentence for
| 81. An old negro man was knocked
| G~wn and robbed of that amount one
| night. The old negro was not hurt,
| Bloyd was convicted of the robbery.
Andy Hollinsworth has spent TWEEN
ty-three years in the penitentiary. Fe-
lx Bell has been in eleven years.
w. Eugene Rumney, the bigamy con-
vict from Bibb. who is scheduled to
| get a parole, is being favored because
his old mother and two little children