Post by happyhaddock on Mar 1, 2007 23:38:59 GMT -5
Michigan and the Death Penalty—A Brief and Horrible Experience
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In Michigan's early days, the death sentence was virtually unknown. One early experience near the territory involved a Detroiter named Patrick Fitzpatrick. In 1828, he was living in an inn on the south side of the Detroit River, in a town then known as Sandwich, now called Windsor, Ontario. When the innkeeper's daughter was found raped and murdered, Fitzpatrick was convicted and hanged for the crime.
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And then, five years after Simmons was put to death for an offense that--terrible though it was--did not warrant the death penalty, the old case of Patrick Fitzpatrick, the man that had been hanged just south of the river in 1828, was back in the news. Because another man confessed on his deathbed to raping and killing the innkeeper's daughter. Patrick Fitzpatrick was innocent.
....
To this day, the ghosts of Stephen Simmons and Patrick Fitzpatrick still haunt the state, and there is never any serious talk about bringing the death penalty to Michigan.
Read the whole story: <MORE> . . .
...
In Michigan's early days, the death sentence was virtually unknown. One early experience near the territory involved a Detroiter named Patrick Fitzpatrick. In 1828, he was living in an inn on the south side of the Detroit River, in a town then known as Sandwich, now called Windsor, Ontario. When the innkeeper's daughter was found raped and murdered, Fitzpatrick was convicted and hanged for the crime.
....
And then, five years after Simmons was put to death for an offense that--terrible though it was--did not warrant the death penalty, the old case of Patrick Fitzpatrick, the man that had been hanged just south of the river in 1828, was back in the news. Because another man confessed on his deathbed to raping and killing the innkeeper's daughter. Patrick Fitzpatrick was innocent.
....
To this day, the ghosts of Stephen Simmons and Patrick Fitzpatrick still haunt the state, and there is never any serious talk about bringing the death penalty to Michigan.
Read the whole story: <MORE> . . .