On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City’s Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building’s lights. Hoover’s gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone ...read more
On May 1, 1856, the adventurer and performer Calamity Jane is born near Princeton, Missouri. The myths and fabrications concerning the life of Calamity Jane are so numerous it is difficult to discover her true story. Legend has it that at various times Jane worked as a ...read more
On May 1, 1863, the Battle of Chancellorsville begins in Virginia. Earlier in the year, General Joseph Hooker led the Army of the Potomac into Virginia to confront Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Hooker had recently replaced Ambrose Burnside, who presided over the Army ...read more
An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. The U-2 spy plane was the ...read more
On May 1, 1926, Ford Motor Company becomes one of the first companies in America to adopt a five-day, 40-hour week for workers in its automotive factories. The policy would be extended to Ford’s office workers the following August. Henry Ford’s Detroit-based automobile company ...read more
On May 1, 1958, President Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law in the creation of the United States of America. Three years later, Congress followed suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day. The idea of a Law Day had first been proposed ...read more
On May 9, 1989, the jury acquitted Williams.
The case would become one of the most well-known in Georgia history—not only because Williams was tried four times, but because the case was the subject of the bestselling book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Williams went on trial in Chatham County Superior Court.
Williams testified that Hansford had been drinking and became angry and threw him against a door. He said Hansford barged into a hallway where he knocked a grandfather clock to the floor, and returned with a gun, which he fired at Williams, who had sat down behind the desk.
The conviction was reversed in January 1983 by the Georgia Supreme Court because the defense had found a portion of a police report that the prosecution had failed to disclose. The omitted portion of the report referred to the responding officer’s investigation of the bedroom floor bullet hole, and said the bedroom bullet hole was fresh–which contradicted the officer’s trial testimony that he could not tell whether the bullet hole was fresh or not.
At the third trial, the nurse testified that she had put plastic garbage can liners around Hansford’s hands before the body was removed for the autopsy. An expert testified for the defense that plastic bags create moisture, which could have washed away any residue. The state argued that the nurse’s notation about the bagging of Hansford’s hands was under the heading of “nurse assessment” instead of under “orders and treatment.” Therefore, the state argued, the note “hands bagged” referred to an observation of the body when it arrived, not an action that was taken after it arrived.
On June 9, 1987, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, with 11 jurors voting to convict and one juror voting to acquit. A mistrial was declared.
Police testified that Hansford’s hands were covered with bags before the body was removed and that later tests of Hansford’s hands showed no gun powder residue. The prosecution contended the lack of residue showed that Hansford had not fired a weapon and therefore, Williams had staged the scene to look like he was acting in self-defense.
Three of Miesen's deputies had to hold Williams's body up by the rope for over 14 minutes, until Williams finally died of strangulation. Williams's attorney, James Cormican, stated that execution was "a disgrace to civilisation.".
Williams's botched execution was used by opponents of the death penalty in Minnesota to argue that capital punishment should be abolished in the state. Minnesota eventually abolished the death penalty in 1911, and it has never been reinstated. William Williams is the last person to be executed by the state.
Williams incriminated himself prior to trial. Ramsey County Attorney Thomas Kane excluded jurors because of their opinion against the death penalty. Williams was sentenced to death by hanging, and on 8 December 1905, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and sentence.
Background. William Williams was born in 1877 and was an immigrant from Cornwall working as a miner in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In 1904, while hospitalized for diphtheria, Williams befriended local teenager John Keller, who was recovering from the same disease. Over the next two years they lived together in Saint Paul, ...
Death. William Williams ( c. 1877 – February 13, 1906) was a Cornish miner who was the last person executed by the state of Minnesota in the United States. In 1905, Williams murdered John Keller and Keller's mother in Saint Paul, and his botched execution led to significant support for the abolition of capital punishment in Minnesota in 1911.
These letters, at the insistence of Mr and Mrs Keller, were unanswered. Williams returned to Saint Paul in April 1905 and in a fit of rage, shot Keller and Keller's mother in their home. Keller was killed instantly when he was shot in the back of the head whilst he was in bed, his mother died from a gunshot wound a week later. Keller's father survived as he was not at home at the time of the shooting.
The testimony of a doctor, who looked at Williams, was that "he did not know why he shot Johnny Keller, only that he wanted the boy to come with him.". When Williams took the stand, he told the court he didn't sleep for three nights prior the murder and was heavily drinking that day.
At the outset of her remarks, Shapiro told jurors that criminal defense attorney Daniel Russo, who represents Williams, wanted them to believe his client’s actions were justified, that Nofuentes and Russell were child molesters.
Shapiro will begin her rebuttal afterward, Judge William J. Pendergast, who has presided over the five-week trial, will issue final jury instructions, and the jury will begin deliberations.
She also said Russell did not hit Williams as arguments and passions escalated outside the house, which Williams said that he did.
She conceded that Nofuentes, in his early 30s at the time of Russell’s death, was intoxicated after returning from a funeral reception for a friend.