Pardon of Franklin Linehart, 1877

LINEHART, LINHART, BULLIS, MATTHEWS, BURT, PRICHETT

Posted By: S. Ferrall IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 8/11/2016 at 19:53:13

Franklin Linehart
Pardoned by Governor Samuel J. Kirkwood, September 8, 1877.
Committed to the Penitentiary, May 13, 1867, under a sentence of the district court of the county of Clayton, for the crime of murder in the second degree. Sentence, imprisonment for life. He had served nine years, and his conduct during that time was unexceptionable. There was some doubt of his guilt, and his earlier life, I was led to believe, had been an orderly one. He had served in the army of the Union, and seems there to have acquired habits of intoxication, which had got him into the difficulty that brought about his imprisonment. Pardon recommended by L. Bullis, J. Matthews, J.P.; Judge Burt, and others, and by the prison officers.

~Special Message of the Governor of Iowa, to the Seventeenth General Assembly, Communicating Report of Pardons and Remissions; January 13, 1878; Des Moines: R.P. Clarkson, State Printer, 1878; pgs 5 & 6. (transcribed from the book, digitalized by Google, http://books.google.com/)

Note: The crime that Franklin Linhart was imprisoned for was the murder of Brad Prichett. An accounting of the crime appears in the 1882 History of Clayton County, Chapter XVI, pg 564. The accounting of the murder can be read on the Clayton co. IAGenWeb site. http://iagenweb.org/clayton