DES MOINES, Ia., Dec. 20.--[Special.]--Public interest is again being aroused in the case of Chester Turney, a young man now in the penitentiary at Anamosa under sentence for seventeen years for larceny and burglary. It is alleged that the greatest value of anything which he stole was only about $50, but it is one of those cases where injustice maybe done under the strict forms of law.
    The boy lived at a little town in Jackson County and had a hard reputation. He committed a great many petty offenses, and finally began stealing, and in time was arrested and indicted on more than a dozen counts. He had no friends and no money to employ counsel, so the court--Judge Hayes--appointed an attorney at Maquoketa by the name of Wynkoop to act as counsel for the boy. This lawyer decided to call no witnesses, on the theory, as he now says, that their testimony would be worse for the boy than the evidence that appeared in the preliminary hearing. So the only evidence offered against the boy was this testimony taken at the Justice examination. As the boy made no special defense the jury promptly reported guilty on sixteen or seventeen counts, and when the minimum of the penalty for each was added up it amounted to this long sentence of seventeen years.
    That was three years ago. Since then his mother, whose devotion to her child is remarkable, has been giving her whole time to efforts to have him pardoned. She succeeded in getting an appeal to the Supreme Court, claiming his conviction was illegal, as he was confronted by no witnesses, but the court held that since the boy and his counsel consented to dispense with witnesses the objection was not valid, so the sentence was sustained. Then she turned her attention to securing a pardon from the Governor. She has circulated petitions, had hundreds of letters written, made appeal after appeal, and so far without success. Legally it seems that the trial was fair and the conviction in accordance with the statutes, but her friends say that the boy was really of weak mind, more deserving to be sent to a hospital or reform school than to prison. Some of the railroads have granted the mother passes over their lines in Iowa, and she travels from one place to another in search of influence or assistance of any kind that will move the Governor. Hundreds of women have become interested in the case, and are now, through pure sympathy, helping the mother by bombarding the Governor with letters, petitions, and personal appeals. On the other hand the Governor thinks that at present there is no occasion for him to interfere, especially as he has received from residents of Jackson County remonstrances against pardoning the boy. Still the poor mother goes on hoping and praying that in some way her boy may be released.
    Mrs. James C. Beecher, sister-in-law of Henry Ward Beecher, has written from Hartford begging the Governor to pardon the boy, and saying that if he will she will take the boy, who is her nephew, to live with her in Connecticut, and will agree that he shall not return to Iowa.
    It is rumored tonight that the Governor may pardon him on New Year's Day though no foundation for the report can be obtained.

Source:

Unknown, "Devoting Her Life To Her Convict Son," Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, Friday, 21 December, 1888, Page 3.