Join s tonight at 7pm for the fascinating story of John Gordon. The reading & book signing are free and open to the public. Gordon (died February 14, 1845) was the last person executed by Rhode Island. His conviction and execution have been ascribed by researchers to anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Irish immigrant bias. As a result, he was posthumously pardoned in 2011. In 1844, Gordon was tried and convicted for the December 31, 1843 beating murder of Amasa Sprague, a Cranston textile factory owner. The murder occurred within the village of Knightsville, Rhode Island.[1] Sprague was a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. His brother William was a United States senator. Six months before his murder, Amasa Sprague had used his familys political influence to have Cranston resident Nicholas Gordons liquor license removed by the city council. (Spragues employees were habitually getting drunk at Gordons premises.) Nicholas Gordon and his brother John were Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland. Nicholas, John and William Gordon (another brother) were all tried for murder, but only John was convicted, a conviction based on contradictory circumstantial evidence. William was found not guilty and in Nicholass case, held after Johns execution, the jury was hung. John Gordon was executed by hanging in the state jail in Providence. The court justices, which included Justice Job Durfee, that were involved in all three trials acted as both trial judges and the court of final appeal. Included in jury instructions, Durfee told the jurors to give greater weight to Yankee witnesses than Irish witnesses. Seven years after Gordons execution, Rhode Island abolished the death penalty. Although it was reintroduced in 1872, no executions took place before capital punishment was abolished again by the state in 1984. In the 1990s, when the Rhode Island General Assembly considered reinstating the death penalty, Gordons case has been used by those against reinstatement to demonstrate the dangers of capital punishment. Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee pardoned Gordon on June 29, 2011, following passage of legislation by the states General Assembly urging such action. Chafee signed the proclamation of pardon at the Old State House, where Gordons trial took place more than 150 years prior.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:39:17 +0000
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