Page:Special message of the governor of Iowa to the seventeenth General assembly, communicating report of pardons and remissions (IA specialmessageof00iowa).pdf/22

20, and growing worse, and in the opinion of the physicians cannot live more than a few months at most.

[It is proper to say that up to the time of submitting this message the required bond has not been filed.]

February 27. Crime, forgery. Sentenced to the penitentiary for three years. Convicted at the October term, 1871, of the district court of Buchanan county. Commuted February 27, 1877, to six months, on petition of George W. Pooler, I. A. Stoddard, D. J. Carpenter, and other residents and citizens of the county, and ten of the jurors, concurred in by Judges C. C. Cole and W. E. Miller (late of the supreme court). Judges Cole and Miller say: “Under the rules of practice in the supreme court, we could not disturb the judgment or reverse the verdict of the jury, but we were of the opinion that the evidence was so manifestly insufficient to sustain the verdict that it ought to be set aside. The case was in our court for some time, and was then affirmed. We do not believe that Mr. Farris ought to have been sent to the penitentiary, or that he ought now to be kept there upon the evidence as it was presented to us.” The district-attorney says: “I think Farris guilty, but after six months or a year it would be well to let him out.” It is represented by the petitioners that Farris always bore a good character previous to this alleged crime; that he was an industrious man; and that he has a wife and child dependent upon him for support. In the light of circumstances which have transpired since his trial I think there is a doubt as to his guilt.

February 28, 1877. Crime, larceny. Convicted at the February term of the district court of Scott county. Sentence, penitentiary for nine months. Commuted February 28, 1877, to imprisonment in the county jail of Scott county for nine months on recommendation of the district judge, district-attorney, the chief of police of the city of Davenport, the clerk of the district court, sheriff of Scott county, the prosecuting witness, and Hon. John W. Green. They represent that John Murry is only seventeen years old; that he has been led into the commission of the offense by bad associations; that his family connections ought to lead him to a reformation, that will not probably ensue if he is incarcerated in the penitentiary. I have no doubt a change in the sentence will have a salutary influence and that the ends of justice will be fully satisfied.

August 8. Crime, assault with intent to commit rape. Sentence, penitentiary for two years, and to pay the costs of prosecution, taxed at three hundred and thirty dollars and