Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 May 1883 — SENTENCED TO DEATH. [ARTICLE]

SENTENCED TO DEATH.

Two of the Phoenix Park Assassins Plead Guilty. Both of Them Sentenced to Be Hanged on June 2. Patrick Delaney and Thomas Caffrey, tw» more of the men charged‘with participation tn the murder of Cavendish and Burke, were arraigned for trial at Dublin on the 2d Inst They created a sensation in the court-room by pleading guiltyto the charge against them. Both were sentenced to be hanged on the 24 of June. Before Caffrey had pleaded guilty he was informed by his solicitors that the crown gave no hopes of mitigation of the sentence of death which would be -passed upon him. When Delaney was callea upon to plead he said: “I am guilty of being in .the park at the time Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were killed, but 1 did not commit the murder. I plead guilty. ” The Judge explained to him that this really amounted to the plea of innocence. Delaney then formally pleaded guilty. He said, “I was brought into this at first foolishly,. not knowing what it was I was forced from my work to go the park. We had to obey the orders of the society or take the consequences. When I got in the park I could not get away. I saw the murders committed, but I took no part in them. I went to the park on Kavanagh’s car. He speaks the truth; so does Carey. The murders were committed by Joe Brady and Timothy Kelly, and by nobody else. I saved Judge Lamson’s life at the risk of my own. I was put on to shoot him by Mullett and Brady. The only way to escape the task was by calling the guard’s attention.” ' Judge O’Brien, in passing sentence on Delaney. said he had a duty to perform. He had at the previous trial of a prisoner for attempting to shoot Judge Lomson pitied him because he showed sbme feeling for his wife and family. The prisoner would see to who* misery they had been brought by the wicked system of conspiracy. When Caffrey was placed in the dock his face wore a smile. The consequence of pleading guilty was again fully explained te him in open court, but he persisted in hjs plea. On being asked whether he had anything to say why sentence should not now be passed upon him, Caffrey replied, in a loua, clear voice: “All I have got to say, standing on t)l* brink of the grave, is that I did not know what was going to happen until twenty minutes before the murders were committed. I was bound to go to the park under pain of death.” The Judge, in passing sentence, said that there were no means of judging the truth of the prisoner’s statement H< did not decide that it was necessarily wholly untrue. Thirteen of the prisoners who have been confined in Kilmainham jail charged with connected with the CavendishBurke tragedy in Phoenix Park, who £av* never been brought to trial on .that charge, says a Dublin dispatch, have been indicted and will be tried for another crime. One of their number Joseph Hanlon, has turned informer, anjl produces evidence to connect them with the conspiracies set on foot to murder Earl Cowper, Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and other prominent officials, whose lives they jeopardized, but did not succeed in taking. The Government regards the evidence sufficient to convict on the charge of conspiracy, while the men cannot be closely connected with the Phoenix Park association.