Salt Lake Telegram | 1903-02-26 | Page 10 | Mortensen's Appeal for a New Trial is Field

MORTENSEN'S APPEAL FOR A NEW TRIAL IS FILED Convicted ;Murdcrcr Waits Until the Last Moment to Brine His Case Before Supreme Court. Notice f appeal in the case of the State vs. Peter Mortensen, convicted of murder in the first degree, has been filed In the District court, and the transcript tran-script of proceedings will fbe filed either today or tomorrow in the Supreme court. The transcript has been fully completed com-pleted and the entire proceedings in the case from the beginning up to this time are contained in the one large volume of 1424 pages of closely typewritten matter. mat-ter. On June 14, 1502", Mortensen was convicted con-victed of the murder of James R. Hay on December 16, 1301. and on August 27, 1902, a motion for a new trial was overruled, over-ruled, by Judge Morse, and the death sentence was passed upon him at that time. It is apparent that the convicted man is playing for a prolonging of his life, or the appeal would not have beei"eld off until the last moment. Six months from the passing of the rentence, the time allowed for making the appeal, would be tomorrow. If the appeal had been taken earlier, and in time for the February term of the Supreme Su-preme court, which is Just over, and had the same been denied1 by that court, his execution would have been sooner. Now the appeal will not be heard until the next session of the court, in May.