The Sickening Sight: A Pardoned Murderer Left to Die in Port Townsend
John N. Young's cancer-eaten face shocked an editor into asking why Washington Territory released sick convicts to become county burdens.
We saw on the street last week a man whose lower lip and part of his chin had been entirely eaten away by cancer. The denuded bone and great gums and teeth glaring out, with the corruption oozing from the ragged surface of the sore, presented a picture of human repulsiveness we do not wish to look upon again. This man, whose name we understand is John N. Young, has recently been pardoned out of the penitentiary at Walla Walla, where he was serving a sentence for a murder committed in this county a few years ago. The wishes of the people of this county, however, we believe, were not consulted in the matter of his pardon. We fail to see any mercy or justice in turning out this poor creature—sick, destitute and friendless—before his term of sentence expires. The Territory should provide suitable care and medical treatment for convicts when sick, instead of turning them out to become a burden and expense to the county in which they may happen to be.
“The Territory should provide suitable care and medical treatment for the convicts when sick, instead of portioning them out ... to become a burden and expense to the county.”
The editor's complaint was partly fiscal: a sick former prisoner could become a county expense. But it also raised a question still at issue in Washington and across the country: what care does the state owe people it has imprisoned, especially as they reenter society?
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