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Show GfflEMR EXPLAINS C0IIGT.PIB0BG Salt Lake Tribune: When F. C-Richmond, C-Richmond, president of the Salt Lake Commercial club and member of the state council of defense, presented a resolution to the stato council yesterday yester-day afternoon condemning the state board of pardons, which Includes in its membership Governor Bamberger, the five justices of tho supreme court and the attorney general, for releasing releas-ing a considerable number of convicts from the state prison he dropped a bombshell Into the council meeting. Mr. Richmond's resolution cited that about sixty prisoners have been released re-leased within the last few months from tho state prison and that they havo been thus enabled to "prey on the community and inaugurate a carnival car-nival of crime in Salt Lake City and other communities." Ho added that many of them had been rearrested .and are now on their way back to the penitentiary. A storm of protest Is said to have arisen in tho executive room when Mr. Richmond's resolution was presented. pre-sented. Mr. Richmond withdrew the motion. He Is understood to have introduced in-troduced it at the suggestion of Mayor Ferry's city defense organization. At tho conclusion of the session Governor Bamberger made the following follow-ing statement: "My attention has been called to a recent statement made by J. Parley White, chief of police of Salt Lake City, and repeated yesterday by Fred C. Richmond, president of the Salt Lake Commercial club, at a meeting of .the state council of defense, to the effect that the board of pardons has recently released from tho penitentiary peniten-tiary scores of desperate criminals to prey upon citizens of Salt Lake, and who had actually inaugurated in this city a 'carnival of crime.' "Replying to these gentlemen, I wish merely to state that before convicts aro released from the stato prison by tho board of pardons, either by pardon, par-don, parole, commutation or termination, termina-tion, the fact that the cases of such convicts are to be considered is publicly pub-licly advertised, and it Is the sworn duty of Mr. White as a peace officer and the duty of Mr. Richmond as a good citizen to appear before the board of pardons at their meetings and to inform the members of tho board if there are included among the list to bo acted upon persons known to them to bo desperato criminals who are likely to prey upon the citizens of Salt Lake City or of any other community, or to Inaugurate 'a carnival of crime.' "In explanation of the number of prisoners recently released from the penitentiary, I wish to say that nearly all of those released were released because their sentences were terminated termin-ated by tho board and not because of paroles, pardons or commutations. Most of these prisoners were given Indeterminate sentences by the judges of the various district courts of the state and at the time of such sentences sen-tences these district judges made recommendations rec-ommendations as to tho terms to bo served by these convicts, and in almost al-most every Instance the board of pardons par-dons followed the recommendations of tho district judges. Had these terms been definitely fixed by the district judges tho convicts would have been released at least as soon as the board of pardons released them, and probably prob-ably sooner, because they would have been given allowances for good conduct. con-duct. "In every Instance where a prisoner was released by action of tho board of pardons it-was only after assurance was made by reputable citizens that employment had been found for the prisoner, and, so far as the board ib advised, with one exception all of the prisoners released by tho present board are working at legitimate employment. em-ployment. The one exception was a young man who failed to do as had been agreed upon, nnd he is now under arrest. The prisoners who were paroled pa-roled .are all reporting regularly and aro regularly employed. "Neither Mr. White nor Mr. Richmond Rich-mond has given any of the members of the board of pardons any information informa-tion to tho contrary." |