The origin of the life of your humble writer: Part XLV
By: Preston Aucoin
This week, I will deviate from my regular column describing my journey for survival, finding that the world is cruel, life is a jungle, friendships are insecure, violence is rampant, wrong doers are triumphant, and sins stalks the earth.
Some say death is a welcome release, it is like the odor of myrrh, like sitting under an awning on a breezy day, like the scent of lotus blossoms, like a homecoming and advocate early or premature demise.
As Polonius, the garrulous old courtier, advised his son, Laertes, I only wish to guide you along your journey to that Celestial Home, from whence no one has ever returned to tell us about.
We will never know if Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, a murderer, experienced those feelings when a federal district judge sentenced him in the New Mexico Territory west of the pecos, known as the wild, wild west over 127 years ago.
What am I going to share with the gentle reader is a transcript of the actual word for word sentencing imposed by a federal district judge.
The reason I choose to do so is to let you, the reader, compare the judicial philosophy of the courts at that time (1881) with today’s modern day and age approach. I think you will agree with your writer that it is a glaring and penetrating contrast. Here it is, exactly as it came out of the official record:
Death Sentence 1881
The following is a verbatim transcript of a sentence imposed upon a defendant convicted of murder in the federal district court of the Territory of New Mexico many years ago by a United States judge, sitting at Taos in an adobe stable used as a temporary courtroom:
“Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, in a few short weeks it will be Spring. The snows of Winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the air will become soft and balmy. In short, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won’t be there.”
“The rivulet will run its soaring course to the sea, the timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won’t be here to see.”
“From every treetop some wild woods songster will carol his mating song, butterflies will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum happily as it pursues its accustomed vacation, the gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild grasses, and all nature, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavair Gonzales, will be glad, but you. You won’t be here to enjoy it because I command the sheriff or some other officers of the county to lead you out to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of some sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead.”
“And then, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavair Gonzales, I further command that such officer or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but bare, bleached bones of a cold-blooded, copper-colored, blood-thirsty, throat-cutting, chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son-of-a-b---h.”
United States of America vs. Gonzales (1881)
United States District Court,
New Mexico Terrritory Sessions
Over the last century and a quarter, the structure of the federal courts have evolved from a lowly adobe stable to the imperial, opulent marble, granite and crystal glass classical Greek columned palatial edifice housing our federal court and federal district judges in Lafayette.
With regards to the death sentence imposed on Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales’ via speedy justice as compared to death row today where murderers sit for sometimes 20 years or more, the contrast is shocking.
Further, your humble writer submits that in less than a decade, the U.S. Supreme Court will pronounce the death penalty unconstitutional, and hence, there will be no more death penalty in the United States.
Admitted that Jose’s execution was somewhat barbaric, to say the least, it was certainly efficient. And I remind the observant reader that in 1927, there occurred the hanging of the murderer, Euzebe Vidrine, right here in Ville Platte.
The purpose of this column is to illustrate to the gentle reader how times are changing and to let him/her decide which system is better, that in the days of Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, or in today’s system of hardly ever executing murderers. The reader will decide.
In my next column I will return to my sporadic tedious biographical pilgrimage sometimes charged with agony and other times with ecstasy.
I invite the reader of this column to listen to my radio programs on KVPI 92.5 FM or 10.50 AM at 12:30 noon every other Wednesday.