The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1917-01-01
Trusting There Are Better
Reasons in the Other Cases
Than There Are i'm Mrs. POpe's

mute the sentence OF an inmate OF
prison was placed in the governor of
meet, NOT TO CHEAT the ends of JUS
tice.
Clemency by the chief executive is JUS
tilted. Of course. upon a showing that 4
man in prison is innocent of the crime
for which he is paying penalty
-clemency by the chief executive is JUS
tilted by SHOWING that a-inan in prison
Is broken I'M health to point that fur
Their confinement would prove fatal.
CIemency by the chief executive is jus
tilted, we would say, when complete refor-
nation has been effected and those who
are innocent would suffer most from the
mans continued incarceration.
Gov. Ferris is about to leave Office with
q record of having released more men
from prison than any of his predecessors.
He punched pardons, paroles and COM
mutations of sentence Thursday. to the
number of 80, bringing the total for his
administration to 433 and passing the
record set by Hazen S. Pingree, of 352
This is the age of advanced penology
which is all right.
We are for it.
1t does not cali for freedom for a con-
vict before he has Served the term Of
his sentence.
The governor may indorse it, too but
we do not understand that clemency Is
extended in any of these cases in the
spirit of cooperation with the new sys-
tenn, or with the idea of contributing to-
ward the discipline Of any prison
Unless the governor has advised with.
worked in sympathy with and gained
the approval of those of our prison Off
tials who look upon their responsibility
rs that of making over men and fitting
them for usefulness, we would say that
He Has uouc ILLS duNdhScu pciOiOSg
more harm than good.
Gov. Ferris dismisses the subject of
his wholesale releases with statement
to the effect that he knows the facts con-
nected with his acts of clemency and his
critics do not.
BY going no further than that, he i'm
plies that his critics are not entitled TO
the facts, either.
1t happens however, that the facts in
the case of Mrs. Nellie Pope, whom the
governor has let out of the house of cor
rection are as well known here in De-
troit, where her horrible crime vas
committed, as they are to the governor
Mrs. Pope conspired with her lover
against the life of her husband.
She enticed her husband to her side,
and when his back was turned, at sig
nal from her, the lover rained blow after
blow with an axe upon her husbands
head, Datter1ng 1T TO pulp.
She called her daughter to help her
remove from the blood-spatted walls
and floors the evidence of the crime.
The lover, unquestionably the weaker
Of the two and the dupe of this woman.
dieA in prison, paying the penalty in full
for his part in the foul killing.
The motive was Pope's life insurance,
some $4,000.
In prison Mrs. Pope was far from a.
model prisoner.
Superintendent Jacobs says she had no
respect for prison rules, was mean and
surly and constantly making trouble
among the other inmates.
The ends of justice, the security Of
society and the deterrent force of the
maximum penalty for this woman's
crime would have been served better had
Gov. Ferris left her in prison.
The woman was taken TO the Salvation