TWENTY-NINTH LEGISLATURE. No. 1.] [SENATE. COMMUNICATION OF GOVERNOR DANA. To the Honorable Council: Valorus P. Coolidge was, in March, 1848, convicted of a capital offense, and the time, (one year from the date of sentence,) within which the statute prohibits an execution, has nearly expired. In view of its expiration, I have endeavored, with all the care which should characterize an investigation and conclusion, on which the life of a fellow-creature is suspended, to give a just construc tion to the laws, under which he was convicted and sentenced, that I might rightly determine what duty devolves upon the executive, in the premises. The law under which he was sentenced, is the law of he revised statutes, with a slight, but, (so far as it bears pon this question,) immaterial amendment. This law is nearly a transcript of the law passed in 1837. For some years previous to the passage of the law of 1837, a very general effort was made for the abolition of capital punishment, by arguments presented, and appeals made through the press; by the presentation of petitions, and Wm. T. Johnson, Printer to the State. |