Raleigh, Sept. 5 (AP)—Would the average person, if convicted of a capital crime, prefer death to a life sentence in prison?
Prisoners in “death row” here, by their actions, invariably answer the question in the negative, Pardon Commissioner H. Hoyle Sink said today.
“I have heard a great many people say that, if they had to serve the remainder of their lives in prison, they had rather just die and get through with it, but when the electric chair is near, it becomes a very different matter,” said Mr. Sink.
‘I have yet to see or learn of a prisoner condemned to death who failed to accept a commutation to life imprisonment, and they never fail to put off the fatal day, if they can.
“The nearest I ever knew of a man failing to accept a commutation was in the case of a prisoner who had only six more weeks of a sentence to serve. He earned the governor was going to parole him for the remainder of the term, and indicated that he would prefer to finish the sentence, rather than to be free with the remainder of his sentence hanging over him, in case of misconduct.
“But when the papers were actually signed and he saw them, he very quickly changed his mind and availed himself of the opportunity to secure his liberty six weeks earlier.”
From page 2 of The Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, Sept. 5, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-09-05/ed-1/seq-2/
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