Pardon denied

Marcus Garvey lost his appeal against his mail fraud conviction, and was taken into custody on February 8, 1925. He began serving his five-year sentence at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Georgia. But, prison walls could not contain his zeal to prove his innocence to the world. His trial, he said, was not a fair one, and so he set out to prove such.

On March 23, 1925, a writ of certiorari petition, applied for by Garvey, was denied. It was an attempt by Garvey to get the United States (US) Supreme Court to review his conviction. On June 5, 1925, Garvey wrote an application for a presidential pardon. He listed many grounds for such a pardon, but there were two of them that were more critical than the others, it seems.

“ It is alleged that I mailed on or about December 13, 1920, a certain letter to one Benny Dancy addressed to 34 West 131st St., New York City, borough of Manhattan, who was residing at an address in the borough of Brooklyn, New York, with the intention to defraud. I never knew of or about Dancy at any time until I saw him in court. I never knew such a man lived. I knew nothing of any letter mailed to Dancy. I never authorised the mailing of any such letters or letter,” the petition states.

The prosecution had produced an empty envelope bearing a Black Star Line stamp and addressed to a Benny Dancy of New York as evidence that Garvey had tried to collect money through the mail. Dancy testified that some government agents gave him the envelope. He said he didn’t remember what was in the envelope, but he had received mail from the Black Star Line.

After continuous questioning from the prosecutor, Dancy said that he did not read all the letters, but he remembered that some of them had sought investment in the Black Star Line for the purchase of bigger ships. Then, there was Schuyler Cargill, the only government witness, who testified about mailing of letters for the Black Star Line of which Garvey was president.

“He was unable on cross-examination to properly identify himself as an employee of the corporation during the periods of years he claimed on examination to have worked with the company. His testimony under cross examination was nothing short of perjury when he admitted that he was told to say the things he did under examination by the prosecutor himself, Mr Maxwell S. Mattuck.

“And that he was further told by Mr Shea, one of the post office inspectors who ‘worked up’ the case, to make this statement about posting letters at the College Station, he was unable to identify the location of College Station, and yet claimed to have been in the employ of the corporation and mailed its letters for years.” Garvey also says.

The long and detailed petition was endorsed by an editor and banker from Philadelphia, a bank president from Pittsburgh, a New York City lawyer, a New York City judge, a Cleveland physician, and a real estate broker from California. Their endorsement was based on the following grounds:

“Our complete belief in the honesty and integrity of the applicant and our desire to see justice done to one who has honestly and faithfully laboured in the interest of his race.”

But, the petition did not reach the desk of the president; it was stopped at the Office of the Attorney in Charge of Pardons, in the Department of Justice, Washington, DC. The attorney’s response reads, “ Sir: The reports upon the application for executive clemency of yourself are averse or adverse or of such a nature as not to entitle the case under the rules governing application or pardon to submission to the president for consideration this disposes of the case and the papers have accordingly been filed.”

It goes on to say, “ Rule 6 reads as follows: ‘When none of the persons so consulted advises clemency the papers are not sent to the president except by his special request, or by special order of the attorney-general, but when any one of the officers consulted advises clemency the papers are submitted to the president’.”

In 1926, nine members of the jury that convicted Garvey signed an affidavit and forwarded it to the Department of Justice stating that Garvey had been sufficiently punished and recommended that his sentence be shortened. Pardon was denied in September 1926, but on November 18, 1927, President Coolidge commuted Garvey’s sentence. Shortly after, he was deported to Jamaica, from where he departed to England in 1935, never to return alive. He died there in 1940.

The efforts to exonerate Garvey did not die after his death, however, as over the years many people and groups have been pressing the US government to clear his name.

editorial@gleanerjm.com