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Mr. Justice Crawford said:

‘But, your Excellency, he was pardoned on the scaffold for that.’

‘The pardon is not valid, and cannot stand, because he was pardoned for killing Szczepanik, a man whom he had not killed. A man cannot be pardoned for a crime which he has not committed; it would be an absurdity.’

‘But, your Excellency, he did kill a man.’

‘That is an extraneous detail; we have nothing to do with it. The court cannot take up this crime until the prisoner has expiated the other one.’

Mr. Justice Halleck said:

‘If we order his execution, your Excellency, we shall bring about a miscarriage of justice, for the governor will pardon him again.’

‘He will not have the power. He cannot pardon a man for a crime which he has not committed. As I observed before, it would be an absurdity.’

After a consultation, Mr. Justice Wadsworth said:

‘Several of us have arrived at the conclusion, your Excellency, that it would be an error to hang the prisoner for killing Szczepanik, instead of for killing the other man, since it is proven that he did not kill Szczepanik.’

‘On the contrary, it is proven that he did kill Szczepanik. By the French precedent, it is plain that we must abide by the finding of the court.’

‘But Szczepanik is still alive.’

‘So is Dreyfus.’

In the end it was found impossible to ignore or get around the French precedent. There could be but one result: Clayton was delivered over for the execution. It made an immense excitement; the State rose as one man and clamored for Clayton’s pardon and retrial. The governor issued the pardon, but the Supreme Court was in duty bound to annul it, and did so, and poor Clayton was hanged yesterday. The city is draped in black, and, indeed, the like may be said of the State. All America is vocal with scorn of ‘French justice,’ and of the malignant little soldiers who invented it and inflicted it upon the other Christian lands.

[1] Pronounced (approximately) Shepannik.