Year: 1864

| iui IcpTescItdtiOu III lHe NOuN


SENTENCE JOSEPH STEPHENS FOR THE MUIR
DER OF JOHN FowLER.-The jury in the case OF
the people VS. Joseph Stephens returned verdict
of - guilty of murder in the first degree " on
Saturday last, being out but ten minutes. The
Judge set - clock p. of Monday, the 29th
ult., as the time for passing sentence. The
court room was crowded on Monday afternoon,
and previous to the sentence being rendered the
counsel for the defendant, Jas. d. Mix, Esq, of
Shasta, made application for a new trial, which
was overruled by the Court, but ten days was
afterwards allowed to file new grounds for such
application. Judge Garter then proceeded to
deliver the sentence of death, for the copy of
which, as given helow, we are indebted to NJ. F.
Griffin, Esq, clerk of the Court:


JOSEPH STEPHENS Upon patient and impair
tial trial jury of your county have found you
guilty of the highest crime known to the laws of
civilized government The crime of murder. OF
which you have been convicted, has been de-
nounced with the scvercst penalties by the laws
of God and mankind from the earliest periods in
the history of the human race. In human gov
ernment the punishment of death has almost in
variably been inflicted upon the murderer, and
for one of the most brutal and horrid murders
ever recorded in the annals of crime you have
Justly forfeited your life.


With q malignty and abandonment of heart
without the slightest provocation, with au-
dacity that shocked the beholders of the iiendish
deed, and astonished the community in which it
was perpetrated, and in deliberate and wlful de-
fiance of the laws of your country and your God.
YOU shot down a citizen and neighbor-and that
neighbor you claimed to be your friend. The
victim of your malignty and vengeance had as
much right to life with all its endearments and
sacred relations and enjOyments, as had you who
took it away in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eve, from one whom, from the evidence in this
case, we have right to believe was in his life
time respectable and industrious member of
society and far your superior in every attribute
of man. But fend-like you struck him down
in the prime of his manhood when life was
dearest to him, and his hopes of success and
happiness were highest, without moment 5
warning of his fate. Thus sent away by your
bloody hand, he has gone to his God, before
whose awful judgment-seat you must ap-
pear to be judged for your crimes. The victim
of your diabolical rage has gone before you to
- that country from whose bourne no traveller
returns where your crime is about to hasten
you to stand before that Tribunal of Eternal
Justice from whose judgment there is no appeal
1t becomes you, in your awful condition, to
place your thoughts upon your eternal future,
anu W seek tu'tt ucllN WHICH GOu only
give you. 1t appears you have grown up to the
estate of manhood without the benefits of much
education, but under system of civilization
and society, you probably have had in some
period of your life, your attention directed to
matters of religious instruction. As the best
and most rational means of supporting YOU in
the great tribuation into which you have
brought yourself by your crime, and in order to
prepare yourself for the hour of death and the
life to come, l. will commend you to seek the con-
ISOLATION of the religion of the Savior of man.
Kind through whose mercy alone you may hope
for grace and pardon. To mediate or attempt
escape from your doom must only add to the
mlSerieS OF your deplorablc situation and should
the delays of the law possibly prolong your life
for a short time, you as a reasonable man should
remember your guilt has been too closely shown,
and that the horrid crime of which jury of
your own selection has convicted you, has been
too conclusively proven by respectable and un-
impeachable witnesses, to allow of any hope OF
a change hereafter of the verdict found against
you on this trial. The decision OF the jury pro-
nouncing you guilty of murder In the first
degree is a righteous rerdict, and 1t Will be but
acting the part of wisdom in you to seek other
and far higher consolation than can arise from
any expectations or a hope of escape<rom the
punishment due to your crime.


The officers of the law will take every precau-
ton necessary to execute the sentence of the
law demanded by the verdict of the jury. to be
pronounced upon you. Think not to escape
though any human influence agency of YOUR
own from the demands of justice in your case


1t now becomes the solemn duty of the Court
to pronounce the judgment of the law upon YOU.
on the verdict rendered against you in this case ,
which Judgment is that on Friday, the eighth dan
Of April nert, you be taken from the place of
your confinement in the county of Trinity, by
the Sheriff, to the place of execution to be pre-
pared by him said county, and that there by the
said Sheriff on the day aforesaid, between the
hours of eleven o clock in the forenoon and two
| o'clock in the afternoon, you. Joseph Stephens.
be hanged By the neck until you shall be dead.


The doomed man listened to the terrible judg-
ment with more apparent calmness than we had
imagined any man could under similar circum-
stances. Not a tremor of nerve or countenance
was visible as he took his seat or when he re-
tired with the officer


CoNING TO THEIR SESsEs.-A proposition is up