CHAPTER XI.
TRIALS OF THE ITALIANS—THEY ESCAPE THE GALLOWS THROUGH A TECHNICALITY OF THE LAW—GALLOTTI, BALLOTTI, CAMPAGNE AND VALENTINE RECEIVE LIFE SENTENCES AND THE OTHERS GET OFF LIGHTLY.
It would seem from the evidence and their own confessions that this band would surely be hung. But such a fate was not in store for them. On Saturday, December 4, 1875, the preliminary examination was had before Justices Whittemore and Sayer. Gallotti and Ballotti pleaded guilty, and, together John Anatta, Leonardo Allessandri, Guiseppe Campagne, Leonardo Deodotta, Frank Valentine, Guiseppe Pinachio and Henry Fernandez, they were bound over to the district court for trial on the 26th day of the following January. John Anatta and Allessandri, the young harpist, turned state’s evidence before the grand jury and indictments were returned against the entire band. On the 30th of January the accused were brought into court and counsel was assigned them.
February 8 they were arraigned, pleaded not guilty, and their cases were set for trial during the April term. May 20 Gallotti was before the court and pleaded guilty. Great excitement was occasioned when it became known that under a section of the statutes he could not be hung, a life sentence being the utmost penalty in cases when the accused entered a plea of guilty. The next day Ballotti was arraigned and endeavored to withdraw his plea of not guilty. The motion, for reasons not clearly apparent, was overruled and his case was set for trial on the following day. The evidence in the trial of Ballotti was simply a repetition of the facts already known to the reader, and a verdict of murder in the first degree was rendered.
It was decided that under the law Gallotti could be tried in spite of his plea. When arraigned Gallotti again entered the plea of guilty, and it was considered proper to carry his case to the supreme court as a test of the loose law then in force. The same proceedings were had in the case of Frank Valentine. Campagne also pleaded guilty, and Anatta and Allessandri entered special pleas of voluntary manslaughter. Deodotta was acquitted on the charge of being accessory, and the following sentences were meted out to the bloodiest band that ever went unhung: Gallotti, Valentine, Campagne and Ballotti were sentenced for life; Anatta and Allessandri received each ten years while the others went scot-free.
Gallotti, the leader of the cut-throat band, was pardoned out in 1885, leaving immediately for his native land, Italy, but, according to reports, never reaching it, but dying on his journey. Ballotti, the best one of the lot, died in the prison at Cañon, December 20, 1887. Campagne was pardoned out June 29, 1888, and Valentine, the other life man, was restored to liberty by Gov. Waite on August 5, 1895.
MUSGROVE AND HIS GANG.