The Fourth Street Merchant Who Lost Everything Wants His Freedom Back
Henry Murphy built a thriving general store on Fourth Street; a conviction for attempted criminal assault took the business, the money and four years of his life. Now friends are asking the judge and prosecutor who tried him to bring him home from Walla Walla.
It is understood that an effort is being made by friends of Henry Murphy to secure his pardon from the state penitentiary at Walla Walla, where he is serving a four-year sentence for attempted criminal assault. At the time of his arrest Murphy was conducting a general merchandise business on Fourth Street in this city, and enjoyed a large patronage. His subsequent trial on the above charge cost him everything he had. An appeal has been made to Judge Carey and to former Prosecuting Attorney H. G. Kirkpatrick in an effort to obtain a pardon. Murphy has over a year yet to serve on his sentence. It is thought improbable that a pardon will be obtained at this time.
“His subsequent trial on the above charge cost him everything he had.”
In 1908 a pardon ran through the same judge and prosecutor who had won the conviction, and the paper weighed the crime by what it cost the defendant rather than by what it cost the victim. That framing has shifted unevenly over the century since, and the vocabulary of the charge — 'attempted criminal assault' — is period shorthand that hides the severity of what was alleged. What has not changed is the small-town mechanics of clemency: petitions, signatures and the influence of friends.
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