Show COUNTS FOR NAUGHT 1 Board of Pardons Has to Go Over Its Work I mPECULIAR PREDICAMENT THREE HOURS TOIL GOES FOR NOTHING t i I After Considering and Passing On a Number of Applications For Pardons Par-dons Judge Baskin Discovers That It Requires a Majority to Concur and This Was Not the Case J I The board of pardons yesterday found itself in the position of the old king who marched up the hill with his 20000 men and then marched downs again I After putting in some three hours of hard and tedious work the board discovered dis-covered that its action had not been legally taken so all of yesterdays grist wiir havo to be ground over again at the regular meeting of the board next month I Several applications for pardon were considered together with a mass of accumulated ac-cumulated papers and several oral arguments ar-guments Then the board went into executive ex-ecutive session Only Governor Wells and Justices Baskin and Miner were present The three constituted a quorum as Justice Bartch and Attorney Attor-ney General Bishop are the other members mem-bers Board Wasnt Unanimous When the three got into their private pri-vate deliberations they found that not on a single case were all agreed For some reason or other which he considered con-sidered good and sufficient one member mem-ber every time refused to coincide with the other two Still this did not seem important and the board after a time reported its findings to the clerk Governor Wells went on down to his office where he was engaged in the transaction of some business when Justice Basldn came in slightly out of breath The two held a hurried consultation con-sultation and then Justice Miner was i sent for In a few minutes the clerk t was also called in and finally it was i given out that the action of the board I in passing on the various applications had been illegal The law says distinctly that no pardon I par-don shall be granted unless a majority of the board concurs in the action As two members do not constitute a majority f ma-jority itwas perfectly clear that everything every-thing done by the board yesterday will all have to be done over again at some subsequent time Report of Action Suppressed All news as to favorable or unfavorable unfavor-able action on the applications that were considered was carefully suppressed sup-pressed after Justice Baskin made his discovery Several inmates applied for release from prison Some of them had lengthy petitions and many friends while others had bare application blanks filled out and no friends or endorsements en-dorsements I The application of Thomas Williams r who was sent down from Juab county r for murder fifteen years ago for life was to have been considered When it was reached however Attorney S P Armstrong who represented Williams moved that it be continued for one t month The motion was granted without with-out discussion On behalf of Thomas Lacy who was sent up from Ogden for seven years for burglary Nov 10 189G William Turton made a plea He said the prisoner in l a moment of inadvertence caused by whisky committed the crime with which he was charged He had always t al-ways borne a good reputation though and his punishment was disproportionate disproportion-ate to his offense Judge Rolapp who I presided at the trial as well as the county officials and the jury in the r case recommended that the pardon be granted r Apostle Smith Talks Anothet application was from Frank Farr of Ogden who broke into a brewery brew-ery and got a year in the penitentiary therefor May SI 1899 Apostle John Henry Smith talked in favor of granting grant-ing this pardon on the ground of the prisoners youth and his present desire to reform Clarence E Bean who has embraced Christianity since he was convicted of burglary Dec 10 1S97 and sent up for five years by Judge Norrell had an application in Accompanying it was a letter from Rev Clarence T Brown who stated that Bean was doing good missionary work among the convicts Other applications were from George Wanless sent from Provo Feb 2 1899 for three years for attempted rape and Francis Hegestead sent from Beaver for sixteen years Nov 16 1895 for murder mur-der in the second degree |