Capital Punishment

March 30, 1849

Under the title Shall He Be Hung?, here is an article about Washington Goode, a “colored man, a sailor,  … under sentence of death”….noted is a petition to the Governor for the commutation of the sentence …signatures include Samuel May,  Ellis Gray Loring, Wendell Phillips, H. I. Bowditch, James Freeman Clarke, J. A. Andrew.   The signers claim that the evidence of his guilt is circumstantial, and of flimsy character…that  many mistakes have been made, and they also make an appeal that “no good can spring from such an example” because he is “ignorant, friendless, degraded”.

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