Colorado governor pardons man executed for murder in 1939
Reuters



By Keith Coffman Keith Coffman – Fri Jan 7, 5:47 pm ET

DENVER (Reuters) – Colorado's outgoing governor issued a posthumous pardon on Friday to a mentally disabled man executed in 1939 for the murder of a 15-year-old girl, a crime the condemned man's supporters have long said he never committed.

In pardoning Joe Arridy, Governor Bill Ritter called the case a "tragic conviction (based) on a false and coerced confession."

"In addition, it would be unconstitutional today to impose the death penalty on anyone as intellectually disabled as Arridy," Ritter, the former district attorney for Denver, said in a written statement.

Arridy confessed to the 1936 murder of Dorothy Drain in the southern Colorado city of Pueblo. The girl and her 12-year-old sister, Barbara, were bludgeoned with a hatchet while they slept.

Dorothy Drains was also raped and died from her wounds. Her sister survived the attack.

In his pardon, Ritter said Arridy was arrested in Cheyenne, Wyoming and was browbeaten into confessing to the murder.

He was executed in Colorado's gas chamber on January 6, 1939. A second defendant who worked for the girls' father, Frank Aguilar, later confessed to the crime and told police he never met Arridy.

Nevertheless, both men were convicted of the murder. Aguilar was executed in 1937.

Arridy was born in 1915 to non-English speaking Syrian immigrants. He was in and out of institutions for "mental defectives" throughout his childhood and was deemed an "imbecile" with an I.Q. of 46 by mental health workers.

In recent years, Arridy became a cause celebre, with numerous news articles, a book and a screenplay written about the case. Mental health professionals and defense attorneys have pushed for his pardon for years.

While in Colorado's penitentiary, Arridy played with toy trains and trucks and was unable to comprehend the gravity of the charges against him.

For his last three meals on death row he ordered ice cream, and went into the gas chamber on his execution date with his ever-present childlike grin.

Ritter, who leaves office next week, said he didn't apply 2011 standards in making his decision.

"Numerous people at the time found it unconscionable that Mr. Arridy was sentenced to death," Ritter said. "Pardoning Arridy cannot undo this tragic event in Colorado history. It is in the interests of justice and simple decency, however, to restore his good name."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110107/us_nm/us_pardon_colorado_posthumous_1

One of many reasons to end the barbaric antiquated neandrathalic death penalty.

I'm not buying it!

Certainly makes one question the wisdom of the death penalty being used on anyone, doesn't it?

No. People who are retarded or have other mental health issues need to be in a hospital where they can get constant treatment, that'd be something Obammy can do that I would approve of.

One innocent death is too many and we have had too many already. Death penalty is antiquated and neadrathalic. As humans we should have out grown it years ago.

We need the death penalty. Too many rapists, drug dealers, murderers, pimps, gang bangers, welfare brats, and liberals.

I agee with boredinaz06...as a canadian i totally support the death penalty for child predators!!!!

I agree 100%.
Unless it's a clear cut, caught in the act, case.
Or, there's a confession.

You lefty's are crying over this now??

It is until a rape or murder happens to someone close to you. It's easy to sit back and say it's barbaric and wrong when you don't know the person on a personal level.

as a victim myself, I also agree with Dragoness on this issue
although I dont see a point in pardoning someone after they have been killed,,,,,

I am a personal victim of several crimes including rape. I would not want death for my molester.

So that doesn't hold water.

I have also heard mothers of slain children say they do not want the death penalty for the perpetrators because they do not want to be like the perpetrator with blood on their hands.

They don't want to bring death which would make them no better then the killer.

The Death Penalty= the only way to keep a killer from killing again!!