GONZÁLEZ: Hey everybody, it’s Ana González. You’re listening to Mosaic, a podcast about immigration and identity. Last episode began with a question: Who killed Amasa Sprague? If you haven’t listened to that episode, I suggest you stop what you’re doing and listen to Part I first. Amasa Sprague was a prominent mill owner whose murder would lead to the arrest and execution of an Irish immigrant, John Gordon, in 1845. But to the growing Irish Catholic immigrant community in the US, Gordon’s prosecution felt more like persecution.

PAUL CARANCI: Because of... the bigotry, prejudice, a whole group, a whole culture lost something. You know, to them, America was no longer viewed as a land of opportunity...And the government itself wasn’t trusted by anyone of Irish descent or Catholic faith... because of this.

GONZÁLEZ: John Gordon’s execution was so contested that it ended the death penalty in Rhode Island. But that didn’t change the fact that many believed an innocent man was hanged. In today’s episode of Mosaic, John Gordon’s fate turns into folklore that, 166 years later, causes a group of Irish Rhode Islanders to reopen the trial and seek justice.

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GONZÁLEZ: Ken Dooley grew up in Cranston, less than a mile from the spot on the Pocasset riverbanks where Amasa Sprague was murdered on New Year’s Eve 177 years ago.

KEN: And we used to play a little game growing up. Sometimes I'd be Amasa Sprague. Sometimes I'd be the murderer. We played little games.

GONZÁLEZ: Ken is 89-years-young, so he’s playing this creepy version of tag in the 1930s. It’s around this time, too, that he first hears the name “John Gordon,” but never in connection with the Sprague murder.

KEN DOOLEY: I can remember my grandmother, my father's mother...And she used to rock me and sing me songs. I must have been like five years old. And she sang a little song about “poor Johnny Gordon”. And I can remember going to my mother and asking what she meant. She didn't tell me what happened. And she just said, ‘Oh, he was an Irish man. And he was not treated very well when he came over from Ireland to Cranston.”

GONZÁLEZ: Ken Dooley’s grandmother isn’t the only woman of her generation who took the story of John Gordon personally. Scott Molloy from last episode, the URI professor, explains that, to Irish-Americans at the turn of the 20th century, John Gordon occupied a holy position.

SCOTT: The attorney general of the United States, who was a Republican, said he couldn't count the number of Irish women, elderly, superstitious, not educated, who would come to his office and want a piece of the twine from the rope that hanged John Gordon...Can you imagine? That many years later?

GONZÁLEZ: I have to say, in doing all this research and talking to all of these Irish-Americans, I get it. My great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side, John Harrigan, came over from Ireland around the same time as John Gordon. He was Catholic. From the same area, too, County Cork. If John Harrigan had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or drunk when he shouldn’t have been, he could have been John Gordon. Carrying on the story of John Gordon is the Irish community’s cross to bare. Down in Newport, a young man named Peter Martin hears a similar story to the one Ken Dooley received.

PETER MARTIN: I grew up in the Irish ghetto called the fifth ward of Newport. I can remember distinctly being in my fifth ward garage with my father...I might have been eight years old.

He told me that the there was no death penalty in Rhode Island because the last man executed was later found to be innocent. Strong memory for me as a little boy, knowing that not that he was Irish, not that he was John Gordon. He was an innocent man. And that's why there’s no death penalty.

GONZÁLEZ: Now, folklore has replaced some of the facts of the story Peter heard from his dad: John Gordon was never found innocent. At least, not in the court of law. But that’s how he’s viewed a hundred years after his death: as an Irish martyr.

The legend doesn’t stop there. Some Irish grannies won’t enter Providence Place Mall because it’s built on the site where the gallows used to be, where John Gordon hanged. Or, if there’s a really good sale at Macy’s, they’ll cross themselves and say a couple of “Hail Marys” at the bottom of the escalators.

SCOTT MOLLOY: That case banged around Rhode Island interminably for decades and decades. And every 10 years or so there'd be an article, a big article in the Providence Journal, which by that time wasn't quite as prejudicial as it had been. And they’d go through the trial records one more time. Later, they’d chase down some more rumors, they’d interview some couple of people in their 90s who remember one thing or another. But it was always there.

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GONZÁLEZ: In the late 1990s, Ken Dooley is sitting in his home in Connecticut. He’s just published a book with his friend and former Boston Celtics coach, Red Auerbach. And he gets a call from his sister, Eileen, back in Rhode Island.

KEN: And I was getting all these calls. You know, you know complimenting me. My sister, Eileen, called and said, ‘Why are you writing silly books about sports when John Gordon lies in a grave, you know, as a convicted murderer?’

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GONZÁLEZ: Like any younger brother, Ken kind of brushes off his sister. But Eileen dies a few years later in 2003. Ken comes back to Rhode Island for her funeral, and begins looking into the Gordon case as a hobby. He talks with people who know a lot about John Gordon, like state historian Pat Conley and our friend, Scott Molloy. Soon, Ken begins to understand who John Gordon was as a person beyond the myth.

KEN: John Gordon was a weak character. He drank too much, had difficulty holding a job. But the one thing he was, he was a very strong Catholic.

GONZÁLEZ: Ken isn’t exactly sold on Gordon’s innocence because he feels like he’s only getting the Irish legend side of things. But at the same time, Scott Molloy is going over the John Gordon Trial again. At this point, it’s a pretty routine thing for him. And he revisits the execution scene. If you don’t remember from last time, Catholic priest John Brady hears John Gordon’s last confession and turns to the crowd of Yankee politicians gathered for the hanging and says:

SCOTT: ‘John, forgive your enemies. They don't know what they're doing.’ He said, ‘because you're going to join a myriad of other Irish martyrs who have been killed for the same thing: Nothing.’

GONZÁLEZ: It dawns on Scott that this comment by Father Brady means more than anyone had ever considered. Because John Gordon was infallibly devout. Even if he was passed out Saturday night, he would make it to 7am mass every Sunday. His last confession would have been his last chance to come clean in the eyes of God.

SCOTT: And my thought was, if Gordon could only save himself by fully confessing the murder and putting himself at God’s mercy, so to speak. Is he gonna lie? I mean, God's gonna know he's lying, isn’t he? ….But what makes me think that he told him the truth that he didn't do it was Father Brady would never have been so abrasive to come out, after hearing a guy just say that he was guilty. He's not gonna go out and say anything. ... So my guess is that Gordon confessed, did not do the murder. And Father Brady was then emboldened to come out and throw it back in the faces of the Yankees. Circumstantial evidence. Can I prove it? Not in a million years. Can you prove it by religious practice or whatnot? You can come pretty close with it.

MUSIC: MOMENTUM BUILDING

GONZÁLEZ: Scott writes an article about his reinterpretation. Ken Dooley reads it.

KEN: And all of a sudden, I said, “Hey, there's no question in my mind: John Gordon is innocent.”

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GONZÁLEZ: Ken starts doing what any writer would do: he begins writing the story of John Gordon. And he includes all the nuance and emotion that history sometimes glosses over. He moves back to Rhode Island full-time in 2009 and is able to have regular talks with Pat Conley and Scott Molloy. Soon, he has a script for a play. He titles it “The Murder Trial of John Gordon”. It premieres at the Park Theater in Cranston in January of 2011 to a packed house. Even in the 21st century, the story of John Gordon continues to draw a crowd.

PETER MARTIN: Yeah, it was well done. And I went seven times out of 21.

GONZÁLEZ: That’s Peter Martin again. By this time, Peter is the State Representative from Newport. He makes the drive up to Cranston seven times in three weeks to watch this play. One night, after the performance, Peter finds Ken Dooley.

KEN: The play was on for a few days. And this man came up to me and said, ‘You really think that John Gordon is innocent, don't you?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I definitely do.’ So he said, ‘Well, what are you gonna do about it?’

GONZÁLEZ: It’s 166 years after John Gordon’s execution. Ken never thought there could be any legal action from his play, but Peter has other plans.

KEN: So we talked and he said, “I'd like to do something. I think he was innocent, too.”

GONZÁLEZ: Peter and Ken decide to see if the other members of the audience also feel moved enough to do something.

PETER: Well, a little bit of ego on my part is every evening when the play would begin. A man would come out. And he would announce that during a break, there's a petition out on the tables in the hallway. And state representative Peter Martin will be submitting this petition to the governor to request a pardon for John Gordon.

GONZÁLEZ: A pardon for John Gordon, a man hanged in 1845, from the Governor of Rhode Island in 2011. At this point, it’s just an itch of an idea. But after three weeks of performances, the petition has 4,167 signatures. Representative Martin is going to take John Gordon’s trial to the Rhode Island House of Representatives and ask for a new hearing for the last man executed in the state.

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PAT CONLEY: That's rare to get a pardon, you know, so many years after you were executed.

GONZÁLEZ: This is Dr. Patrick Conley. He’s the former state historian, lawyer, and legendary former history professor at Providence College. He describes the possibility of a pardon as

PAT: To use the Catholic term, miraculous.

GONZÁLEZ: Pat Conley is one of the first scholars, if not the first, to study and teach the story of John Gordon.

PAT: In the early 70s, when I was researching it... we started to research a little bit about John Gordon, from the trial record, because in our research on the history of the Diocese of Providence, it became somewhat clear that Gordon as an Irish Catholic, more than likely suffered or experienced an unfair trial... due to his Catholic faith.

GONZÁLEZ: Dr. Conley teaches the story of John Gordon in his classes at Providence College. That’s where Scott Molloy first hears it. And Erik Chaput from last episode. And Pat and Ken Dooley became friends while Ken was writing his play. But after nearly 40 years of teaching the injustice, Pat hears that Peter Martin is going to the Statehouse to ask for a pardon.

PAT: Once the move got going, once Peter Martin and all had kind of spearheaded that, and, you know, given the composition of the legislature [LAUGHS]....I was pretty sure that it would have strong legislative support.

GONZÁLEZ: Pat laughs about the composition of the legislature because modern-day Rhode Island politics is dominated by Irish-American politicians. 1906 marked the first Irish Catholic governor of the state, James H Higgins. In 1911, the first Irish Catholic Congressman, George O’Shaunessy, was elected to his first of four terms. And from the 1940s to today, Rhode Island has been a Blue state, ruled by a mix of Irish, Italian, and WASPy legislative and executive branches.

So, when Peter Martin goes to the Statehouse to draft the resolution for a pardon, he talks to a man named John O’Connor, an Irish-American. While O’Connor drafts up the legalese, Rep Martin gets the backing of four other reps, McNamara, Flaherty, Edwards, and McCauley, all Irish Americans. It’s clear that the pardon of John Gordon is not only a way to clear an innocent man’s name, but it’s a flex of political power for Irish Americans. And, as Scott Molloy points out, it’s an example of how groups can use that power for good.

SCOTT: I mean, I always say, we’re the quintessential middle class Americans. Who the hell's better than us? I don't mean that in a cocky way. Just, you know, we've made it. And the only thing left for us to do is to fight for other people, and to keep our own history alive so people can draw inspiration from it. And so I always thought, the drive to work on the Gordon case might, at some point in life, help some other poor immigrant out of a tough situation. And force the legal system, you know, to be legal.

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GONZÁLEZ: With deep support from the Irish political community, Peter Martin introduces House Resolution 5068 on January 11th, 2011. Soon after, he runs into Governor Lincoln Chafee in a hallway in the Statehouse.

PETER: He was walking along with his state trooper...

‘Governor, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm Representative Martin from Newport.’ ‘Oh, nice to meet you.’

GONZÁLEZ: He brings up John Gordon and the resolution for a pardon.

PETER: ‘We must help that man.’ Strange words, but real sentiment. And right there and then, I could have got the pardon...No, because I didn't want to sit here today telling you we got it done because the guy was Irish... I didn't want to get it done because Chafee his family felt were implicit.

GONZÁLEZ: Lincoln Chafee comes from a long line of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. He can trace his ancestry back to the courtroom of the John Gordon Trial and certainly to the mill owners and aristocracy that discriminated against Irish Catholic immigrants in the 19th century. Peter doesn’t want to use that against him. He wants to prove that the legal system can work without favors or cronyism. But that way is longer. January passes, then February, March, and April. He’s getting anxious, worried that House Resolution 5068 is going to be forgotten in the mix. But then, John O’Connor comes into his office.

PETER: And John comes in and says, ‘Well, you know, that Gordon thing we will get a hearing coming up for you. Get your people lined up.’

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CHAIRWOMAN AJELLO: Representative Martin's resolution 5068. Representative Martin.

PETER: Thank you, Chairwoman Ajello. It gives me great pleasure to be here. After many months of planning, and putting together the information about John Gordon and the hanging of John Gordon that occurred in 1845. [fades out] This has been an interesting assignment….

GONZÁLEZ: It’s May 4, 2011. The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee is set to hear arguments for and against Resolution 5068. Pat Conley opens the arguments.

PAT CONLEY: My name is Patrick Conley. I’m here to testify in favor of the resolution…. What I want to talk about today briefly is what we will call the temper of the times, because that's often undermined the temple of justice, especially one of its main pillars, trial by jury, by one's peers. [FADE DOWN] There have been some areas where intolerance and prejudice, a perceived threat to the status of the position of the dominant majority has caused them to act with hostility. To those that pose such a threat. They are judged rather harshly or treated unfairly.

GONZÁLEZ: He gives the historical background, the context of John Gordon’s arrest, trial, and execution. Then, Scott Molloy speaks.

SCOTT: We will never be able to determine with exactitude whether John Gordon was guilty or innocent. What we can always be sure of, is that discrimination against Irish Catholics was the main reason for his conviction and subsequent execution. Thank you very much.

GONZÁLEZ: Following Professor Molloy, the Assistant Public Defender in Providence, and a fellow former student of Pat Conley’s, Michael DiLauro, testifies.

MICHAEL DILAURO: The Gordon case provides us with a teaching moment. We have a chance to look at, in context of this, to look at it and see where we've been and where we're going. And of course, if you were to act favorably on this resolution, we'd have the added benefit of righting what most people believe historically was a great injustice and a great wrong. And clearly that if you were to do that it would be an imperfect righting of a wrong but the best that we can do under the circumstances.

GONZÁLEZ: DiLauro also outlines the flaws in the Gordon trial: the absence of a jury of his peers, the explicit bias of Judge Job Durfee, and the lack of a separate court of appeals. After this, there are more testimonies that speak to the injustice of the Gordon case – someone from the ACLU, more representatives, a Catholic priest, Ken Dooley, and the director of his play – but none really bring the case to an urgent, present relevance. That is, until Bruce Reilly takes the stand, holding his daughter, who’s maybe 2-years old.

CHAIRWOMAN: Bruce Reilly, direct action for rights and equality. And his assistant.

BRUCE: My boss, actually. ... FADES OUT

GONZÁLEZ: Bruce works for the grassroots activism nonprofit, Direct Action for Rights and Equality. He brings up a case of two Irish-American brothers who were both sentenced to life in prison for a murder in Pawtucket in 1984. They’re still incarcerated for a crime they claim they did not commit.

BRUCE: And if you're sitting there in prison, doing life without parole or life, nobody cares about you. Nobody pays attention to your case. And our state does not have an Innocence Project. Our law school does not have an Innocence Project, and the few attorneys who have the time and space to, to to address these issues. I wish there were tons more. I wish the amount of energy that went into the Gordon case, went into the Brennon case, or someone else who's sitting up at ACI. And I just like to say there's people rotting away today, because of things like racism, mistakes, malice, oversight. There's a lot of reasons why injustices occur.

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GONZÁLEZ: After an hour of testimonies, all in support of the resolution, the hearing in the House ends.

CHAIRWOMAN AJELLO: That will conclude the testimony on the resolution to pardon John Gordon. The next legislation we will hear tonight is House Bill 5132 by Representative Kennedy….

GONZÁLEZ: And nothing happens. A week of silence. But the following Wednesday, May 11th, the House of representative votes on Resolution 5068. It passes unanimously.

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GONZÁLEZ: It then goes to the Senate, where it passes unanimously, again, without another hearing. But those votes are merely strong suggestions that the Governor pardon John Gordon. Nothing is binding until Chafee signs it. From May 11th, when the resolution passed, to mid-June, there’s no word. But then, Peter Martin gets a phone call.

PETER: And I get a call from the governor's office saying to me that the governor would like to have the pardon next Tuesday or whatever day it was. Short notice.

GONZÁLEZ: Just like that, Governor Chafee agrees to right a wrong 166 years in the making. Peter tells everyone: Ken Dooley, Scott Molloy, Pat Conley, Michael DiLauro. They all prepare to witness the pardon of John Gordon on Wednesday June 29th, 2011.

PETER: And we had the pardon, in the same room, in the same room at the Old State House on Benefit Street that John Gordon was found guilty. And that was powerful. That was really powerful.

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GONZÁLEZ: Nearly 200 years after John Gordon came to Rhode Island, after the powerful mill owner Amasa Sprague was found murdered, after the trials and heartbreak and execution: John Gordon is pardoned by the State of Rhode Island. It’s a beautiful, sentimental gesture.

But it’s just that: a gesture. It doesn’t save Gordon’s life or give back his good name to a family that fell apart after his conviction. And it doesn’t erase the fact that there are still miscarriages of justice, still bigotry towards immigrants and still a criminal justice system that disproportionately arrests and convicts poor people of color in this country.

John Gordon was one man. And his pardon is one pardon. But, for someone like Pat Conley, who’s devoted decades of his life teaching people about John Gordon, the pardon means one thing:

PAT CONLEY: Vindication. Vindication.

MUSIC: Ballad of John Gordon

GONZÁLEZ: Months after the pardon, in October, the gang comes back together for a dedication to John Gordon in St. Mary’s cemetery in Pawtucket. With the help of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, John Gordon finally gets a tombstone.

KEN: You know, I didn't realize the impact. Until that day, when we went to the cemetery... And then, when we went to the grave and I looked at the gravestone, and then a man,...he wrote the ditty of John Gordon, and he sang it. And it was absolutely beautiful.

GONZÁLEZ: This isn’t the same song that Ken Dooley’s grandmother used to sing to him, but it is inspired by the same man. Rhode Island Musician and Irish immigrant Tom Lanigan wrote it. Peter Martin actually plays harmonica on the recording. But Tom performs this original piece solo at the memorial for John Gordon on October 8, 2011.

MUSIC UP

KEN: He's no longer lying in a grave as a convicted murderer... They made up a medallion for John Gordon, and on the back it had the pardon. So my sister's husband was in the Navy. He's buried at the veterans cemetery, as is my sister. So after the pardon, I drove out there, and I dug a little hole, and I put it in, and I looked up, and I said, ‘Eileen, we did it.’

MUSIC: Ballad up and out

GONZÁLEZ: The story of John Gordon reminds the Irish-American community in Rhode Island that their start in this country is rooted in oppression.

John Gordon only lived in this country for 6 months. If he wasn’t executed, he would have died a small death, only to be remembered by a generation or two of his immediate family. His pardon doesn’t change anything about our criminal justice system today, but, for better or for worse, it’s a living example of that famous Martin Luther King, Jr. quote from his sermon at Temple Israel in Hollywood: the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.