Max Mason. Application No. 6205. 1922-1924.
Type of event: Incarcerations
Location: Minnesota; United States
Document date:
Document type: Gov't Record(s)
Document subtype: Pardon Application
Documents: Max Mason. Application No. 6205. 1922-1924.
Citation:
Minnesota. Board of Pardons.
Max Mason: Application No. 5702.
Pardon Application.
File no. 6205, 1922-1924.
Application.
Image text
5702
No. 6205_
Name Max
Mason__
PRISON
STATE OF MINNESOTA
BOARD OF PARDONS
5702
Den 1-23
APPLICATION
To the Board of Pardons
OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
1. The
application of Max
Mason No.5702
(Give
name under which convicted)
for a pardon
(State whether pardon or commutation is
desired)
2. Pleaded guilty on
the thirtieth day of
July 1921 in the
District
Convicted
Court in and for the
County of St. Louis
of the crime
of Rape.
and imprisoned in
the Penetentiary (sic) at Stillwater,
Minnesota.
on Aug. 8,
1921 for the term of Ind.-Max 30 years
; and who is
now imprisoned
pursuant to such sentence.
3. The name and postoffice
address of the trial judge is Hon. L. S. Nelson , Duluth,
Minn.
and the prosecuting attorney is
Mason M. Forbes, Esq., Duluth, Minn.
4.
Applicant’s full and true name is Max
Mason
His age is 23
years and his birth-place was Decatur,
Alabama
Father’s name Philip
Mason Nationality
Colored
Mother’s name Letha
Mason Nationality
Colored
5. I have never been known by any alias
except “Sonnyboy”
6. I was never arrested, indicted or
convicted of any other offences except Thirty days on work farm,
Louisville, Ky. – Fined $10.00 at Pinesville Ky., and Alabama State
Prison for Larceny.
7. Applicant’s occupation and
residence during the five years next before conviction of the offense for which
his is now
serving were as follows:
Employed as laborer and with circus.
8. Attach hereto either a transcript of the evidence
introduced at the trial or give a brief statement of the facts leading to
conviction of the crime for which you are
now serving.
Miss Irene Tuskin and James Sullivan, two
young people living in the city of Duluth, Minnesota, claim to have visited the
Robinson Shows at that place about 9 o’clock, Monday night, June 14, 920;
that while standing upon the show grounds they were seized by six negroes,
employes (sic) of the show and carried a distance of about a block where in the
darkness Miss Tuskin was raped by four or five of her assailants; that no
outcry was made because one of the negroes held a gun at the head of Sullivan;
that after they were released the couple walked a few blocks to the Merrit
School-house, sat there on the steps and talked for a few minutes, then walked
back to the Grand Avenue car line, took a car and rode ten blocks west, then
walked three blocks to the young woman’s home, sat on the porch for a
while talking. That the young woman went into the house, spoke to her parents
but said nothing about the alleged rape and retired for the night. The first
report of the alleged rape was made by the young man after he had gone to work.
Several of the Negro employes (sic) of the show were brought back to Duluth on
the following day and three of them were lynched that night by a mob and hung
to an electric light post.
Seven or eight other Negroes were
brought to Duluth, among them your petitioner who was indicted and on trial in
the District Court at Duluth convicted of raping Irene
Tuskin.
9. Your petitioner asks that a pardon or
be granted upon the grounds and for the reasons
following:
(Pardon or
Commutation)
From the testimony offered at the trial it is
apparent that the verdict of the jury was due entirely to passion and
prejudice; that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain a conviction; that
your petitioner is innocent; that he comes squarely within the contemplation
of the duties of the Pardon Board in the granting of relief from punishment
improperly inflicted through a story which in its entirety is unusual and
strikingly improbable and calculated to create bias and dethrone reason in the
mind of the average juror to the extent of depriving him of that sane and wise
judgment that should actuate the mind of a fair and impartial
juror.
Respectfully submitted,
Max Mason
Dated at
Stillwater this 21st
day of February ,
1924
No. 6205
5702
APPLICATION
For the pardon of
MAX MASON __
Filed on the day of
, A. D.
1922
__
Clerk.
[Handwritten] I approve a Recomm on the [illegible] 3/14/24; [signature
illegible] chief
justice; Clifford Cullin