John Gordon (murderer)

John Gordon (died 13 February 1845) was the last person executed by Rhode Island. His execution has been ascribed by some researchers to anti-Roman Catholic and anti-Irish immigrant bias.

In 1844, Gordon was tried and convicted for the 31 December 1843 beating murder of Amasa Sprague, a Cranston textile factory owner. Sprague was a member of a prominent Rhode Island family: his brother William was a United States senator. Six months before his murder, Amasa Sprague had used his family's political influence to have Cranston resident Nicholas Gordon's liquor license removed by the city council. (Sprague's employees were habitually getting drunk at Gordon's premises.) Nicholas Gordon was the brother of John Gordon; both were Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland. Nicholas, John and William Gordon (another brother) were all tried for murder, but only John was convicted. William was found not guilty and in Nicholas's case, held after John's execution, the jury was hung. John Gordon was executed by hanging in the state jail in Providence.

Seven years after Gordon's execution, Rhode Island abolished the death penalty. Although it was reintroduced in 1872, no executions took place before capital punishment was abolished again by the state in 1984. In the 1990s, when the Rhode Island General Assembly considered reinstating the death penalty, Gordon's case was used by those against reinstatement to demonstrate the dangers of capital punishment.

References

*Charles G. Hoffmann and Tess Hoffmann (1998). "Brotherly Love: Murder and the Politics of Prejudice in Nineteenth-Century Rhode Island" (Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, ISBN 1558491635)
*Scott MacKay, [http://www.projo.com/news/content/death_penalty_case_05-25-08_TCA892N_v56.2f760d1.html "Judge’s old notes shed light on last execution in R.I."] , "Providence Journal", 2008-05-25