The Evening World

COL. FELLOWS SAYS COMMUTE
His Letter to the Governor Suggests That Chiara Be Not Hanged.

District-Attorney Fellows yesterday sent a reply to Gov. Hill's letter of last Friday, asking for the papers in the Chiara Cignarale case, together with any recommendations that the District-Attorney should think proper under the circumstances.

The District-Attorney's letter, stripped of legal verbiage, reads as follows:

The applicant in my opinion is guilty of the crime of which she was convicted, the proofs submitted to the jury were conclusive of guilt and the verdict of the jury was fully warranted by the evidence.

I am also of the opinion that the sex of the applicant should not be considered either in extenuation of guilt or in mitigation of punishment.

Taking into consideration the fact that this applicant was once, by reason of the acceptance of her plea of guilty of murder in the second degree, in a position where a life sentence awaited her for the same crime for which she is now under sentence of death, it seems to me that it would not be improper that she should, by the act of the Executive, be placed in that situation again.

I would, therefore, most respectfully recommend commutation of the sentence in this case to imprisonment for life.

The District-Attorney desires to have it distinctly understood that he did not recommend the commutation of sentence because the petitioner is a female nor because she has been reported ill. He had no official knowledge of her physical condition.