Word: perovich
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Vuco Perovich, Montenegrin by birth, barber in Rochester, N. Y., by trade, who has constantly maintained that he would rather hang than spend his life in prison, was last week pardoned by President Coolidge for a murder for which he was convicted in Alaska in 1905. Mr. Perovich attracted attention in 1909 by protesting that his constitutional rights had been violated when President Taft commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment. In 1925 a Kansas district court upheld Mr. Perovich's protest, so he was released under a habeas corpus writ and became an active barber. But, last June...
...Perovich. To U. S. Chief Justice William Howard Taft last week came a matter whose acquaintance he had first made as U. S. President in 1909. This was the case of Vuco Perovich, convicted of first degree murder in Alaska in 1905. After respites and appeals, President Taft saved Mr. Perovich from the gallows by commuting his sentence to life imprisonment...
Whereupon Mr. Perovich grumbled, protested. He preferred a death sentence to a life sentence. And, in 1925, a Kansas District Judge ruled that the presidential right to annul a sentence (by pardon) did not include the right to alter it (by commutation) without the prisoner's consent. Thus mercy became high-handed, clemency a usurpation. Furthermore, since Mr. Perovich was being illegally held, his detention could not continue, so he was released under a habeas corpus writ. At large, Mr. Perovich opened a barber shop, has spent the last two years law-abidingly wielding shears and razor...
...Vuco Perovich, though still preferring gallows to cell, prepared to return to prison. As Associate Justice Holmes read the decision upholding the 1909 ruling, despatches reported that "Chief Justice Taft smiled broadly...
| 1 |