By Jule B. Warren
Raleigh, Sept. 24—Governor Cameron Morrison this afternoon refused to interfere with the judgment of the court in the petition of J.T. Harris, Ridgecrest merchant, who on September 3, 1920, waylaid and killed W.H. Monnish, wealthy tourist and philanthropic Baptist layman of Alabama, for commutation of death sentence to life imprisonment.
Unless there is further executive interference, which is not likely, Harris will pay the extreme penalty for his crime on October 20.
The Governor announced his decision immediately after the attorneys for the two sides had finished, dictating a statement giving his reasons for refusing to interfere with the judgment of the court.
The statement declared that evidence had been produced which caused him to doubt any f the testimony offered by the Rev. Livingston Mays, corresponding secretary and manager of the Baptist assembly grounds at Ridgecrest, but that with all of this evidence taken out of the record, there wuld still have been sufficient evidence left to have justified the verdict of first degree murder.
GOVERNOR’S STATEMENT
The statement of the Governor follows:
“I think, gentlemen, that you have done all you can do to save this man’s life. I feel that I am as ready now as I will be at any later time to meet my duty in respect to it. It is true that under the constitution of the State I have the power to stay the execution of the judgment of the superior Court of Buncombe County, affirmed by the Supreme Court of the State, but I do not think that such new evidence has been brought to my attention, or such evidence of the character and manner of the trial in the courts has been made known to me as would warrant me in staying the processes of the court, and commuting the death sentence of the prisoner to imprisonment.
“The two dissenting judges upon the Supreme |Court did not say that the prisoner ought not to die, or express any opinion indicating that either of them thought him innocent of murder in the first degree. They dissented from the majority judgment of the Court upon certain exceptions assigned as errors by the prisoner in his case on appeal. Upon these exceptions I do not agree with the legal position taken by the dissenting judges, and think the majority opinion of the Court the correct law, but if error was committed in the respect pointed out by these two dissenting judges, the errors would not go to a substantial determination of the cause. Error may have been committed in the respect stated by the two dissenting judges, and yet this would not warrant me in forever determining that the prisoner should not suffer for the crime of murder in the first degree.
DISCARDS MAYS EVIDENCE
“As to the evidence of the witness Mays, evidence has been produced before me which would cause me to be highly doubtful of the truth of any statement made by this witness, but his testimony can be utterly excluded upon the case, and yet, in my judgment upon the evidence as disclosed in the record, the jury was not only warranted in convicting the defendant, but if they had not done so with the testimony of Mays excluded, they would have failed in their duty, and returned a verdict clearly against the evidence in the case.
“There is no evidence before me which I thinks warrants an interference with the judgment of the court, and I, therefore, deny the petition of the prisoner, and will permit the judgment of the court to be duly executed.
CAME AS A SURPRISE
While the announcement of the Governor was a shock to the attorneys for Harris and to others who interested themselves in the case, a glance back over the hearing would have indicated that those who watched it should not have been surprised at the decision of the Governor. He intimated that htre evidence offered by Judge Carter as to the testimony of Preacher Mays, completely destroyed the value of that evidence, but the attorneys had not been able to overcome the statement of Mark Brown that excluding the testimony of the preacher, there were 14 others who testified that the man was sane on the day of the shooting, and that there were just a few who thought he acted queerly, or showed any signs of insanity. The evidence of Dr. Highsmith, eminent physician, whom the Governor knew personally, that Harris was all right on the day of the murder, could not be eradicated by the speeches of the attorneys for the prisoner.
CRAIG MAKES FINAL PLEA
Governor Locke Craig made the final plea for the commutation of the death sentence before Governor Morrison on Saturday morning, and following some questioning of various attorneys by the Governor as to certain details of evidence, Governor Morrison took the matter under consideration.
Governor Craig kept his seat while speaking, and although very feeble as to physical condition, spoke with his old time power and fire. It was one of the most powerful appeals made in this famous case. It did not carry the invective and denunciatory eloquence of Judge Frank Carter on the first day of the hearing, but as an appeal for the life of the prisoner on the ground that every act in connection with the murder lacked evidence of deliberation and premeditation it was a powerful appeal backed up with sound reasoning and logic.
The former Governor called attention to the fact that this murder was committed in the open, and that no effort was made to conceal it. That, in itself, was evidence of the lack of premeditation and deliberation. The prosecution itself, Governor Craig pointed out, was driven to this conclusion, and knew that it could not account for such an act by a sane man unless it could supply the motive for the killing. The motive supplied through the testimony of Rev. Livingston Mays, who claimed to have heard Monnish with his dying breath whisper the word “Moonshiners,” thereby connecting Harris with the fight Monnish was supposed to have been making against the illicit whiskey makers in the Ridgecrest section of the mountains. It was Mays who supplied the evidence of deliberation and premeditation when he stooped over the prisoner in the back seat of the train which was carrying him to Asheville to surrender to the authorities, and claims that Harris told him that he did not take a drink of whiskey before the murder because he wanted to be “in his right mind” for an act of that kind.
There is no dispute, said Governor Craig, about the testimony of any witness save Mays and itwas Mays who supplied the testimony of premeditation and deliberation.
Governor Craig thought that if the evidence was as unreliable and as unworthy as the life behind it, Harris’ life should be spared. He closed with an effective description of the heredity of Harris and declared that the curse of the blood was in Harris, that he was suffering from some sins of his fathers.
From the front page of the Charlotte News, Saturday, Sept. 24, 1921. Rev. Mays last name was spelled Mayes in yesterday's article about this case. I don't know which is correct.
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