APPEAL REJECTED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 77, 13 January 1936, Page 5

APPEAL REJECTED.

THE LINDBERGH BABY CASE.

(United Press Association—Copyright.) NEW YORK, January 11.

The Court of Pardons at Trenton (New Jersey) to-day denied Bernard Hauptmann’s plea for clemency, and now, unless the Governor (Air Hoffman) grants a reprieve, he will die in the electric chair at 8 o’clock next Friday evening. For five hours in secret session, the court reviewed the evidence. It also inspected the alleged kidnapping ladder, and after an hour’s deliberation rejected the accused’s petition that the death sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. Though this apparently ends Hauptmann’s long legal battle,' the case continues to have strange angles. To-day Mr Hoffman, who has repeatedly intimated that ho is not fully confident of Hauptmann’s guilt, ordered that Dr. Condon, who acted for Colonel Lindbergh in the ransom negotiations, be detained for further questioning. This followed the revelation that Dr. Condon sailed secretly for South America yesterday, apparently, like the Lindberghs, wishing to he out of the country when Hauptmann was executed, as ho will not touch land until the boat arrives at Panama, which is the very day of the execution. It appears that Mr Hoffman plans a reprieve, but on the other hand the State prosecuting officials said there was no way of forcing Dr. Camion to return, and they would not attempt to do so. When his attorneys told Hauptmann that his plea was refused they urged him that now was the time to confess if he had anything to say or wished to name his accomplices. He answered. “I am innocent. I have never changed my story, and I never will.