Page:Special message of the governor of Iowa to the seventeenth General assembly, communicating report of pardons and remissions (IA specialmessageof00iowa).pdf/3



January 25, 1876. Found guilty, March term, 1875, in the district court of Polk county, of house-breaking, with intent to steal. Sentenced to the penitentiary for one year. Committed June 17, 1875. This pardon is petitioned for by the entire police force of Des Moines, who express doubts whether he was guilty of any criminal intent in entering the house. I have carefully examined the abstract of the testimony in the case, and have taken the opinion of two eminent attorneys, who agree with me that it is at least very doubtful whether the man was guilty of any crime other than intoxication. I have pardoned him upon condition that he abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors, and live a quiet, orderly, industrious life. Failure in compliance on his part will warrant the governor, upon proof satisfactory to himself thereof, summarily to revoke the pardon and remand Maxwell to prison for the remainder of his term of sentence.

February 5, 1877. Sentenced on his plea of guilty to a charge of assault with intent to kill in Cedar county, and committed to the Penitentiary of the State December 9, 1873, for the term of four years. Pardoned on recommendation of Senator Carr and Major Wm. G. Thompson, who was district-attorney at the time of conviction. The prisoner lost his arm from a wound received at the time of the commission of his offense. He had been imprisoned in the county jail and penitentiary about thirty-two months; he was young (only about 19 years of age) when he committed the crime; his conduct in prison had been exemplary. I thought he had suffered sufficient punishment and that his release would be likely to tend to his reformation.

February 5. Sentenced from Scott county