How To Hang A Pardoned Man

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It all started in 1829. A Philadelphia man by the name of George Wilson committed multiple acts of robbery against the U.S. Mail and jeopardizing the life another person during the act of robbery. Wilson and his accomplice was arrested, brought to trial, found to be guilty and was sentenced to be hanged.

Some friends of Wilson's intervened on his behalf, and were finally able to obtain a pardon for him from President Jackson himself. When Wilson was informed of the pardon, he refused to accept it.

The Sheriff had a problem. How could he hang a pardoned man?

He sent an appeal to President Jackson, who equally perplexed, took the problem to the Supreme Court to decide the case. The Chief Justice gave this ruling: "There is nothing peculiar in a pardon which ought to distinguish it in this respect from other facts; no legal principle known to the court will sustain such a distinction. A pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him."

In other words: a pardon is a piece of paper, the value of which depends on its acceptance by the person implicated. It is hardly supposed that a person under the sentence of death would refuse to accept a pardon, but if it is refused, it is no pardon at all. George Wilson must be hanged.

So George Wilson was executed, although his pardon lay on the Sheriff's desk.

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