Pardoning Joe Arridy
-- By Aaron D. Graff
Among the many arguments that citizens make
opposing capital punishment, the possibility
of executing an innocent person looms as
one of the most prevalent and disheartening
arguments one can make. When confronted about
this possibility in 2006, United States Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia adamantly stated
that an innocent person had never been wrongly
convicted and executed. If an innocent person
had been executed, Scalia said, "the
innocent's name would be shouted from the
rooftops."
Opponents of capital punishment
in Colorado are not only shouting the name
Joe Arridy from their rooftops, but are seeking
a posthumous pardon of the Colorado man executed
on January 6, 1939.
Arridy's execution rarely gets mentioned,
but in the late 1930s, the story captivated
the residents of Pueblo. After the brutal
murder and rape of 15 year old Dorothy Drain,
along with the beating of her younger sister
Barbara, citizens of Pueblo begged for justice.
A few leads gave a brief description of the
murderer, and news of the story stretched
up and down the Rocky Mountains. This led
to the arrest of Arridy in a Cheyenne railroad
yard for vagrancy, and he eventually admitted
to the crime.
Through the sudden excitement
of possibly solving the case, the reality
of Arridy's mental state failed to cause
much reservation in prosecuting him. He had
been kicked out of school after two years,
labeled mentally deficient, and housed in
the Colorado State Home and Training School
for Mental Defectives in Grand Junction.
Medical experts adamantly and continuously
defended Arridy's inability to understand
right from wrong, and testified that he would
be willing to admit to anything.
State law
officials ignored all of these signs, and
continued with their prosecution. The state
also ignored a signed statement from Frank
Aguilar in which Aguilar admitted to the
murder himself. The eventual execution of
Aguilar didn't satisfy the prosecutors, and
they worked to convict Arridy and sentence
him to execution.
It wasn't until Arridy's
stay at the Colorado State Penitentiary that
he became more than a wandering 'imbecile'.
Warden Roy Best took a liking to Arridy,
calling him the happiest man on death row.
Arridy found comfort and safety while awaiting
his execution, and a motorized car and train
more than kept him happily busy. Other inmates
on death row didn't shy away from humoring
Arridy, winding up the toys and sending them
back, though they expressed frustration at
not being able to get him to understand why
he was in prison.
Prominent Colorado attorney
Gail Ireland took up the case on Arridy's
behalf, and was able to get a stay of execution
9 times, but much to the dismay of Ireland
and Roy Best, the Colorado Supreme Court
voted 4-3 that Arridy didn't deserve another
sanity trial. His last meal consisted of
Best's wife's homemade ice cream. His mother
shrieking cries of sorrow, and the prison
chaplain's calming hand were the last moments
of Arridy's life. Ireland said of Arridy's
execution, "Believe me when I say that
if he is gassed, it will take a long time
for the State of Colorado to live down the
disgrace."
Thanks to Robert Perske,
whose extensive research and continued devotion
to Arridy's story can be read in Deadly Innocence?,
Arridy may be partially vindicated by a posthumous
pardon that attorney David Martinez plans
to submit to Governor Ritter this fall. Perske
asks that people send letters in support
of Arridy's pardon to him via US Mail to
Perske, 159 Hollow Tree Ridge Road, Darien
CT 06620. With the help of supporters, capital
punishment in Colorado may soon be abolished,
and Colorado will never have the death of
an innocent person on their hands again.
Aaron Graff is currently a paralegal
working for Philip Cherner. He graduated
from George Washington University
in 2009.
