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Show ROBERT F. STROUD FACING SALLOWS ! ! Will Be First Man Legally Hanged in Kansas in Fifty I Years Unless Pardoned LEAVENWORTH. Kan., March 30. j Robert F. Stroud, of Juneau, Alaska, j will be the first man legally hanged in Kansas In almost fifty years unless President Wilson saves him by exercise exer-cise of executive clemency. The last legal hanging in this state took place in 1870 and the death penalty pen-alty was abolished in Kansas in 1907; but Stroud was tried and convicted in I federal courts for a murder committed commit-ted in the federal penitentiary here and sentenced under federal law to be hanged. Another unusual feature of tho case is the fact that he would have escaped uith life imprisonment if he had not insisted upon a third trial which resulted re-sulted in a death sentence. If it is carried out he will be the first man to be executed In Leavenworth prison. s Stroud was serving a 12-year sentence sen-tence in the penitentiary for tho kill-ing kill-ing of a man in Alaska in a quarrel over a dance hall girl, when in 131C he attacked Andrew E. Turner, a prison pris-on guard, and stabbed him to death with a dagger which he had made from a table knife, and carried in a concealed con-cealed pocket in his coat. Stroud as-scrtod as-scrtod subsequently that Turner had called him a name. For this killing Stroud had three trials. In the first he was found guilty guil-ty of murder and sentenced to death, I but the court of appeals remanded the case on the ground that the trial Judge had failed to inform the jury of its privilege of bringing in a "qualified J verdict" limiting his punishment to life imprisonment. In the second trial the Jury availed itself of this legal provision pro-vision and sentenced him for life. Stroud's lawyers felt that they had gained a victory, but at the prisoner's prison-er's insistence the case was again appealed, ap-pealed, and at his third trial Stroud was once more found guilty and sentenced sen-tenced to death. The case was carried tj the United States supreme court Thich affirmed the sentence Stroud has been aided by his mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Stroud, who came from Alaska in an effort to save his life. She appealed to President Wilson to commute the death sentence. |