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Gail Ireland
Colorado
Citizen Lawyer
Terri Bradt
______________________________________________________________________ Gail Ireland Colorado Citizen Lawyer © 2010 Terri Bradt Second Edition 2011 Terri Bradt All Rights Reserved A Publication of Kinetico Studios Busch / Eureka Springs, AR
72631 __________________________________________________________________ For My Mother
Collette Ireland Bradt
A Colorado Native Daughter
Gail
Ireland and Collette Bradt _____________________________________________________________________ Table
of Contents Introduction
Pioneer
Days Hudson Gail
Grows Up Joe
Arridy Serving
Colorado Julie
and Gramps Colorado
Citizen Lawyer Postscript
to 2nd Edition The
Pardon Statement
from Bill Ritter References Index ___________________________________________________________________
Introduction
A wrong may never be righted, but sometimes
the actions of concerned people can help to prevent new wrongs in the
future. And when people come together
to act, powerful things can happen.
On June 2, 2007 people like this came together to focus on a wrong
done to a Colorado son 68 years ago. They felt that it was their legacy.
They could carry out a fight to save the name, if not the life, of a man that
Colorado wrongly executed at the Colorado State Penitentiary on January 6,
1939. And they could try to raise
awareness about people with mental disabilities, to change the way we feel
and think about things and other people.
So, that day in 2007, the gathering of concerned people placed a
proper headstone on the grave of the executed man, and vowed to pursue a
posthumous pardon for the man, Joe Arridy.
They vowed to continue the legacy left to them in 1939 by Joe’s
champion, Denver lawyer, Gail L. Ireland. The people at this gathering were
from all walks of life: writer and advocate, Robert Perske; advocate from the
Arc of the Pikes Peak Region, Craig Severa; screenwriter and author, Daniel
Leonetti; attorney, David Martinez; journalist, Doc Leonetti; entertainment
lawyer and film producer, Michelene Keller; professor and expert in the death
penalty, Michael Radelet; sociologist, Richard Voorhees; poet, Joseph
Forbeck; cinematographer, Waco Guerreva; songwriter, Tom Garcia; and
photographer, Antonio Sanchez, among others. They felt, as did their predecessor,
Gail Ireland, that Joe Arridy was a victim of the times. Today, mentally challenged people have a
greater chance to survive and thrive, especially in the court system. The laws now are still vague and subject
to interpretation, but they reflect the need for society to take care of its
own for the good of the whole of itself.
Even Justice Bakke of the Colorado Supreme Court in July, 1938 had a
vision of the future, when delivering his opinion to deny Gail Ireland’s
appeal to reverse the lower court’s decision to execute Joe Arridy. He wrote, “In conclusion, acknowledgment
should be made of the commendable effort on the part of defendant’s counsel
and others to save Arridy from the death sentence. We are aware that such effort was prompted by the highest
motives which move the hearts and minds of men, but until such time as the
race, in its evolutionary process, can work out a more intelligent solution
of cases such as is here presented, it remains the duty of courts only, to
safeguard the rights of a defendant and see that he has a fair and impartial
trial under the law of the state as it now is, not under what we wish it
might, or should, or may be at some time in the future.” But to Gail Ireland, prompted by the
highest motives, the principle of the law was as good as the letter of
it. He felt that Joe did not have a fair
and impartial trial, and that executing Joe would be the same as murdering a
child. In the final two hour meeting
with Colorado Governor Teller Ammons before Joe was executed, Gail told the
Governor, “I do not know Joe Arridy – as a person he means nothing to
me. It is a principle of law – a
principle of right for which I fight.”
Gail felt that the State of Colorado would never live it down. And there must have been those on the
Colorado Supreme Court who agreed with him, because he managed to win Joe an
unprecedented number of stays of execution before the final appeal was denied
and the Governor ordered the execution to go forward. Through it all, Gail Ireland received no
compensation and paid most of the court costs himself. Chance played a part in the end of
the story, as it turns out. Or maybe
the people were speaking. On January
10, 1939, just four days after Governor Teller Ammons called in the final
order to the Colorado State Penitentiary to promptly execute Joe, a new
Governor was sworn in, Ralph Carr, having defeated Teller Ammons after just
one term. Gail Ireland and Ralph Carr
were peers and friends, both being water and irrigation attorneys, and then
working together while Ireland was Attorney General and Carr was
Governor. Gail said, “Carr was a
remarkable man and we worked together so smoothly.” Ralph turned out to be a humanitarian Governor, championing the
cause for bringing Japanese-Americans from concentration camps in California
to Colorado settlements during World War II.
The opposition to this was fierce, but he persevered. He just had that sense of justice, the
sense that our own citizens of Japanese descent were being treated
wrongly. During his administration,
Ralph Carr was also criticized for paroling convicts. In fact, he sent 97 of them to serve in
the armed forces, and of these 97, only 4 ran into problems. Had Gail Ireland managed to win one more
stay of execution for Joe until Ralph Carr was sworn in, Ralph Carr may well
have commuted Joe’s sentence to life in prison or in a state hospital for the
insane. The sensational murder story and
subsequent execution was followed by millions of people around the
country. Gail Ireland’s efforts were
watched and pondered and discussed, then forgotten. Gail moved on to other things, things that shaped the history
of Colorado in other ways. But, the
case was not forgotten by all. In
1995, Robert Perske wrote it all down in his book, Deadly Innocence?. Then,
Daniel Leonetti painted a picture of Joe Arridy and Gail Ireland in his
screenplay, The Woodpecker Waltz. These works of art spurred a new movement
to save Joe’s name, if not his life.
But without the previous moral conviction of Gail Ireland and others
at the time, there could be no conviction today among the new supporters of
Joe Arridy. The world needs role
models, and Gail Ireland seems to be one of them. But where did Gail come from, and where did he go? Just who was this man named Gail L.
Ireland? Well, for one thing, he
was my Grandfather….
Gail L. Ireland |
