Ten Years for a North Seattle Robbery
Three men who held up a local citizen face a decade of hard labor in the penitentiary.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Martin Murphy, Thomas Davis, and John Murphy, who were convicted last week of highway robbery for holding up John Smith one evening last month in North Seattle, were yesterday sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years each by Judge Ballinger. The judge stated that he regretted he could not make the sentence for life, as he considered it one of the most outrageous crimes he had ever tried.
“Judge Ballinger said he regretted he could not make it for life, as he considered it one of the most outrageous crimes he had ever tried.”
While the North Seattle of 1894 was a rougher, more sparsely populated place, the judicial reaction to 'highway robbery' remains a flashpoint in contemporary debates about sentencing guidelines and the city's approach to violent crime.
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