PROVIDENCE—State Rep. Peter F. Martin is not seeking a pardon for John Gordon, an 19th century Irish Catholic immigrant who remains the last person to be executed in Rhode Island.
Martin hopes for an outright exoneration.
"Since I've been asked to work on this, I've been seeing some strange coincidences happening that have me believing, in a way I don't usually believe, that I'm being guided through this experience," said Martin, a Newport Democrat who has filed a bill in the state Legislature seeking to clear Gordon of the 1843 murder of Amasa Sprague, a wealthy and powerful mill owner who was the brother and father of two Rhode Island governors.
Martin, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said he expects the committee to hold a hearing on the Gordon case sometime in mid-February. He said historians and legal experts will be called upon to testify. If it clears committee, the bill would then need the approval of the state Senate before reaching the desk of Gov. Lincoln Chafee for his signature.
For generations, the story of John Gordon has been a local tale of an Irish Catholic wrongly convicted on circumstantial evidence and the extreme bias of a legal system that stacked the deck against him.
"In my eight years here, we occasionally get calls about John Gordon," said Father William J. Ledoux of St. Mary's Church in Pawtucket. He said that once a year, the Irish Society holds a ceremony at St. Mary's Cemetery, where Gordon is buried in an unmarked grave. Six months after his death in 1844, Gordon's body was moved to St. Mary's from North Burial Ground.
"The problem was because of the anti-Catholic sentiment at the time," Father Ledoux said. "There was this fear that if John's grave was known, his body would be dug up."
Father Robert Hayman, historian for the Diocese of Providence, said the local Irish Catholic community used the Gordon case as an indictment against the prejudices of the old Yankee Protestant establishment.
"There was definitely anti-Irish prejudice," Father Hayman said. "Whether or not John Gordon got a fair trial is a separate issue."
Gordon's story has taken on a new significance, spurred in part by a new play written by Ken Dooley, a Cranston native who grew up listening to his grandmother sing about "Poor Johnny Gordon." Dooley's play - entitled The Murder Trial of John Gordon - is playing at the Park Theater in Cranston through Feb. 27.
"I don't want a simple pardon. He was totally innocent. That's why we're going after exoneration," said Dooley, whose play portrays Gordon as an innocent man. Audiences who have attended the play since its opening last month have been asked to sign a petition calling on the General Assembly to pass Martin's bill. The measure is also being pushed in the state Senate by Sen. Michael J. McCaffrey, a Democrat from Warwick.
"What's happening with John Gordon in the political arena has been great," Dooley said. "Almost everybody who comes to the play signs the petition. This thing has really taken on a life of its own. I'm sure this will pass."
Gov. Lincoln Chafee's office has withheld comment on whether the governor would sign a bill clearing Gordon's name. The Office of the Attorney General has also withheld comment.
The Office of the Public Defender has indicated its support of the measure, which is also endorsed by the Diocese of Providence. Father Bernard Healey, the diocesan governmental liaison, has said that Gordon's story offers a teachable moment about attitudes toward immigrants and the fact that innocent people are sometimes killed by the death penalty.
On Dec. 31, 1843, Amasa Sprague, owner of the A&W Mill in Cranston, was found shot and beaten to death in Knightsville, R.I. A few months earlier, he had been threatened by Nicholas Gordon, John's brother, after Sprague pulled strings with the Town Council to revoke Gordon's liquor license. Sprague did not like it that Gordon's general goods store had cut into his company store sales, Dooley said.
Police immediately arrested Nicholas, William and John Gordon. Dooley said the evidence presented at trial included contradictory witness statements, snow tracks that indicated the murderer had a similar size shoe as John Gordon's and a "bloody" overcoat (red markings on the jacket were later confirmed to be red dye) found at the scene. Job Durfee, the presiding judge, told jurors to give more credibility to native-born Americans than Irish Catholic immigrants.
Nicholas and William Gordon were acquitted, but John - an alcoholic prone to blackouts who could not account for a three-hour period on the night of Sprague's murder - was convicted and sentenced to be hanged.
The execution was carried out on a prison yard near where the Providence Place Mall is located today. In 1852, the state outlawed the death penalty.
Since the sensationalistic trial, legal experts and academics have debated whether or not Gordon received a fair trial. In 2008, a University of Rhode Island professor and staff member discovered trial notes that Judge Durfee wrote during Nicholas Gordon's second trial - the first ended in a mistrial - that indicated the judge upheld almost all the objections raised by the prosecution while overruling most of the defense's challenges.
Meanwhile, other academics argue the jury acted in good faith.
"I think you can argue either way," Father Hayman. "The anti-Catholic prejudice was real. But the degree that impacted the trial, that depends on your point of view."
For his part, Martin said he believes in Gordon's innocence, and said he has received positive responses from several other lawmakers. He has brushed aside some criticisms from constituents that the Legislature's efforts would be better spent tackling modern-day problems than redressing a 160-year-old grievance.
"Justice has no time limit," Martin said.
