A Case of Reasonable Doubt
Salvador Pecani, once sentenced to hang for a brutal crime, is set free after the Supreme Court rules the evidence against him purely circumstantial.
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.
Salvador Pecani, a Sicilian fruit vendor convicted of murdering his friend Conchilia Salvador in 1891, has been ordered discharged by the Supreme Court. The original trial focused on circumstantial evidence, including blood stains and a hatchet, but the Supreme Court found the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The court noted that the circumstantial nature of the case and the defendant's status as a foreigner may have influenced the jury's verdict. Pecani, who remained fearful of his own countrymen, was released to the surprise of many.
“The only theory upon which the verdict of the jury can be accounted for is the great excitement at the time of the murder, together with the fact that the accused was a foreigner and believed to be of an inferior race.”
The court's explicit mention of how the defendant's status as a 'foreigner' influenced the initial trial provides a rare, honest look at the ethnic prejudice within the Washington judiciary in the 1890s.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.