Page:Special message of the governor of Iowa to the seventeenth General assembly, communicating report of pardons and remissions (IA specialmessageof00iowa).pdf/9

1877.] November 7. Committed to the reform school November 25, 1874. Offense, disturbing public peace, in Scott county. This boy’s father is solicitous for his discharge. His offense has certainly been sufficiently expiated, and it seems to me that the influences of home might be more beneficial than those of the Reform School.

November 13. Committed to the Penitentiary from Louisa county April 17, 1871, for twenty years, for the crime of murder in the second degree. Judge Tracy, who sentenced Morphy, says that while he was clearly guilty of the offense for which he was convicted, he (T.) is of the opinion that Morphy has been sufficiently punished, and therefore prays that pardon be granted. Judge Newman, now district-judge, finds that the prevailing feeling is that the man was too severely dealt with, and he should be pardoned. He is satisfied that Morphy has been sufficiently punished and the law vindicated, and unites in recommending pardon. Mr. D. N. Sprague, now district-attorney, says the murder always seemed to him an accident, and he has never been satisfied that Watt (the victim) would not have recovered under careful treatment. Hon. Albert Ellis, former representative, now sheriff of Louisa county, does not hesitate to say Morphy ought to be released; knows he could obtain the names of all the leading citizens of the county for his pardon. Three of the trial-jurors say that the facts, while establishing that Watts died from the wound given him by MurphyMorphy [sic], yet show that if he had had careful medical treatment he might have recovered; and they favor pardon. C. W. Cilley, grand juror, believes Morphy has already been sufficiently punished, and asks, “as an act of common humanity,” that he be pardoned. Morphy says that he has three children in Fulton County, Illinois, with no one to provide for their support, and knows that were he to be released his future would justify the clemency now prayed for. Pardoned on condition that, should he during the term of his sentence become intoxicated, he may be rearrested and pardon revoked.

November 13. Committed to the Penitentiary February 25, 1876, from Lee county, for larceny, for three years. His conduct was good while in prison. It was represented to me, by Hon. Barbour Lewis, and Messrs. Bernard McMahon and T. McGeoy, of Memphis, Tennessee, as well as by a former mayor of that city, where Squires appears to have once resided, that he was there regarded as entirely honest and upright, and that he had commended himself to general favor in that city by an exhibition of personal bravery in a case