CLAYTON SIMMS, LLC 341 SOUTH MAIN STREET, SUITE 500 4111 SALT LAKE CITY, UT: PHONE 801.359.0404 ‘TRIAL ATTORNEYS FAX 801.534.1948 WWW.CLAYTONSIMMS.COM WWW.SALTLAKECRIMINALDEFENSE.COM September 2, 2015 Utah Board of Pardons and Parole 448 East Winchester Street Murray, Utah 84107 Dear Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, Please accept this pardon request on behalf of Joe Hill. Although Joe Hill has been dead for almost 100 years, he deserves to be pardoned for a murder he did not commit. If you need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me at 801-359-0404. Res sully, Clayton Simms cc: Gov. Gary R. Herbert Utah Attorney General Sean D. ReyesSTATE OF UTAH BOARD OF PARDONS AND PAROLE APPLICATION FOR PARDON Please complete this entire application form and provide all requested information. Attach all reports, records or letters as indicated and required. Incomplete or unsigned applications will not be considered. The Board will not consider pardons for Class C Misdemeanors or Infractions. | SECTION I - APPLICANT INFORMATION First Name Middle Name Last Name Joel Emmanuel Hagelund Please List All Other Names, Including Maiden Name, or Aliases Used (If Any). AKA: Joe Hill Date Of Birth october 7, 1879 | Offender # Social Security # FBIF Drivers License # State Issued Last Known address: Utah State Prison Home Address | City State | Zip | Code ‘Telephone Call 7 E-Mail Phone | Have you ever previously applied for, or been granted, a pardon? | x Mest, No. If yes, please provide the date of the application, the outcome of the application, list any conviction(s) pardoned, and attach a copy of the application and the Pardon Certificate. **The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole ruled against commuting Joe HIl1's sentence on September 18, 1915. Rev. 07-2015SECTION Il —- PARDON REQUEST AND CONSIDERATION Please explain your reasons for applying for a pardon. Include a summary of how your life and | situation or circumstances have changed since your last arrest. Also include the reasons you feel | you are a good candidate for pardon consideration, as well as the circumstances which you fee! | support such a pardon. Please use and attach additional sheets if necessary. Joe Will was a labor organizer, songwriter and itinerant worker. As 2 songwriter, Mr. Will created the phrase "pie in the sky" and his most recognized songs include: "The Preacher and the Slave", "Rebel Girl" and "casey Jones-the Union Scab". In 1913, Joe Hill was working at the Silver King Mine in Park City. In Salt Lake City on January 10, 1914, a grocer, John G. Morrison, and his eldes: son, Arling, were gunned down by two men. The two murderers escapad“ from the scene, but one of the bandits was wounded in gunplay. Merlin Morrison, who was John G. Morrison's 13 year old son, was present during the shooting and was the onl ving eyewitness. M bandits. On the same evening of the murder, Joe Hill sul nshot Joe Ht suffered this gunshot wound at the hands of a romantic rival. Joe Hill's treat~ ing physician informed the police of his imjury and he quickly became the lead suspect in tl x. Joe Hil1 was sho! a romantic rival for the interest of 20-year-old Hilda Erickson. Joe Hill never presented his alibi at trial, he was convicted and ultimately executed by firing squad on November 19, 1915. Joe Hill was innocent, but he refused to use his alibi because he did not want t potentially tarnish the reputation of his love interest, Hilda Erickson. Letter: of Hilda Erickson, which were released after her death, reveal that Joe Hill was definitely shot by Otto Appelquist, who was competing for the affection of Ms. Erickson. History has demonstrated that Joe Hill is innocent. It is respectfully requeste: that his murder conviction be vacated and that Joe Hill should be pardoned for a crime he did not commit.SECTION III - APPLICANT'S FAMILY INFORMATION If Married, Please Provide The Following Information For Your Spouse Spouse's Name | N/A Home Address | City ] State Zip Code Telephone | Cell E-Mail Phone Please List Any Children And Their Ages Child’s Name Age N/A SECTION IV — APPLICANT’S EMPLOYMENT HISTORY ‘Beginning with your current or most recent, please list your last five places of employment, and provide the requested information for each. Dates of | Employer’s Name ‘Address Phone | Reason for Leaving Employment ‘Supervisor's Name City, State, Zip industrial Workers 0 1) isior he'Woria-ciawy Unknown aborer at Silver 2) isis faagtiine in Park ote nkenown 3 4SECTION V — APPLICANT’S MILITARY HISTORY Tf you have ever served in the United States Military, Reserves, or National Guard, please provide the following information. Branch Of Service Dates Of Service Last Commanding Service MOS Officer Last Unit Last Base Assignment | Assignment Rank at Discharge Type of Discharge | Service Awards or ] Commendations | SECTION VI - APPLICANT’S EXPUNGEMENT HISTORY ‘Utah Lew provides for a process known as Expungement, whereby some arrests and convictions can be expunged or purged from your criminal history. (See Utah Code Ann. §77-40-101). Below, please detail your attempts to expunge the crimes for which you are seeking a pardon. If you have ever been denied a Certificate of Eligibility, denied an expungement, o- otherwise informed that you are ineligible for an expungement of any criminal conviction, please attach all letters, orders, ot other documentation, Date of Petition Date of Denial Reason(s) Given, For Denial {SECTION VIL - REFERENCES Please provide the names. addresses, and relationship of at least three non-family references. 1,Section VIII - CONVICTIONS SOUGHT TO BE PARDONED ‘Please list all convictions for which you seek a pardon. For each conviction, please submit all police reports, Pre-Sentence Reports, and Court Dockets. Please include all requested information for each conviction. Use and attach extra pages if necessary. If required information is not available, please list all attempts and means you have used to obtain such information, Lack of, or failure to provide, required information may prevent the Board's consideration of your application. Please be aware that the Board will not consider a pardon of Class C Misdemeanors or Infractions. 1 | Crime of Date of Conviction | murder Offense January 10, 1914 Gity / County OF Investigating Occurrence Salt Lake City Police Agency [Salt Lake City Court OF Court Case # Convietion - Date of Sentencing Conviction June 27, 1914 __| Judge Morris L. Ritchie Defense Prosecuting Attorney Orrin N. Hilton | Attorney Vietim[s] Names | son G. Morrison and Arling Morrison ‘Sentence Imposed Death by firing squad, November 19, 2015 Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration _| Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered. 2] Grime of Date of Conviction Offense Gity / County Investigating Of Occurrence Police Agency Court OF Court Case # Convietion Date of Sentencing Conviction Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney, Attorney Vietim[s} NamesSentence Imposed - Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered. 3] Crime of Date of Conviction Offense City / County Investigating Of Occurrence Police Agency Court OF Court Case # Convietion Date of ‘Sentencing, Convietion Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney Attorney Vietimis} Names ‘Sentence | Imposed, Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered,4] Crime of Date of Conviction | Offense. City / County [Investigating Of Occurrence Court Of Court Case # Conviction Date of Sentencing Convietion Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney Attorney Vietim|s} Names Sentence | Imposed Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges have been paid or remitted, Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered. Attach Additional Pages If NecessarySection IX - OTHER ARRESTS OR CONVICTIONS Please list all other arrests or convictions, This includes convictions for which a pardon is not requested, any federal conviction, all convictions in any other state or territory, and any criminal charges which have been filed against you and are currently pending in any court. Please include all requested information for each arrest or conviction. Use and attach extra pages if necessary. If required information is not included, please list all attempts and means you have used to obtain the information. Failure to provide required information may prevent the Board’s consideration of your application. 1| Criminal [ Date of Offense Offense City/County | Investigating Of Oceurrence Police Agency ‘Court Name and Court Case # Location Date of Arrest, or Conviction Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney Attorney, Vietim[s] Names Sentence | Imposed Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees. or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduet, and any plea agreement entered. 2 | Criminal ] Date of Offense Offense City / County Investigating Of Occurrence Police Agency Court Name and Court Case # Location Date of Arrest ‘or Conviction Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney Attorney Victims} ‘NamesSentence Imposed - Place of Dates of Incarceration _| Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees. or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered. 3 | Criminal ‘Date of | | Offense Offense Gity / County Investigating Of Occurrence Police Agency ‘Court Name and Court Case # Location Date of Arrest or Conviction Judge Defense Prosecuting Attorney Attorney ‘Victim|s] Names | ‘Sentence Imposed Place of Dates of Incarceration Incarceration Please list all restitution, fines, fees, or Surcharges imposed or ordered. Submit verification that all restitution, fines, fees, or surcharges have been paid or remitted. Please describe and explain this offense, your conduct, and any plea agreement entered. Attach Additional Pages If NecessarySECTION X - INCARCERATION HISTORY Ifyou have ever been incarcerated, please list each instance or period of incarceration. Dates of Place of Sentencing | Release [Incarceration | Incarceration _| Commitment Offenses Court Date SECTION XI - INCARCERATION DISCIPLINARY HISTORY Ifyou were ever the subject of a disciplinary violation whi Date of Place of Violation __| Incarceration _| Disciplinary Violation Discipline Imposed incarcerated, please list each disciplinary violation. Section XII - Letters of Recommendation Letters of recommendation in support of your application and request for a pardon must accompany this Application. Letters may be submitted from any person who knows you well and knows of the changes you have made to your life since your convietions, Letters of recommendation may be submitted from any source, including, but not limited to the following: spouse, family members, neighbors, employers, co-workers, religious leaders, others with whom you attend religious services, | elected officials, judges, prosecutors, counselors or treatment professionals, or persons with whom you engage in significant activities. Please attach all letters of recommendation to your Application. 10OATH OR AFFIRMATION | By my signature herein, I swear or affirm upon my oath that all information included, submitted, and reported in the foregoing Application for Pardon, as well as in all accompanying material and documentation, is true and accurate van_*/2/ 2015 eS ignature Please Note: Pardon Applications are considered only after a significant period of time of exemplary citizenship and demonstrable evidence of rehabilitation, which generally requires that at least five (5) years have passed since the termination or expiration of all criminal offenses, sentences, and supervision on probation or parole. Submitting a Pardon Application does not necessarily result in the Board scheduling a pardon hearing. The Board may deny a pardon request without holding a hearing. In addition, if the Board schedules a pardon hearing, there is no guarantee that a pardon will be granted. ‘When completed, please return this Application, along with all other required documents, letters, and extra pages, to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole: Utah Board of Pardons and Parole Attn: Pardon Specialist 448 East Winchester Street Suite 300 Murray, Utah 84107 For questions or assistance, please call the Board at 801-261-6464 and ask to speak with our Pardon Specialist. 11The New York Times Examining a Labor Hero’s Death By STEVEN GREENHOUSE = AUG. 26, 2011 At Woodstock, Joan Baez sang a famous folk ballad celebrating Joe Hill, the itinerant miner, songwriter and union activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915. “I never died, said he” is the song’s refrain. Hill's status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36. The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart. A Salt Lake City jury convicted Hill largely because of one piece of circumstantial evidence: he had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest on the same night — Jan. 10, 1914 — that the grocer and his son were killed. At the trial, prosecutors argued that he had been shot by the grocer’s son, and Hill refused to offer any alternative explanation. Mr. Adler uncovered a long-forgotten letter from Hill’s sweetheart that said that he had been shot by a rival for her affections, undermining the prosecution’s key assertion. The book, “The Man Who Never Died,” also offers extensive evidence suggesting that an early suspect in the case, a violent career criminal, was the murderer.Hill, who bounced around the West as a miner, longshoreman and union organizer, was the leading songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies, a prominent union that was widely feared and deplored for its militant tactics, He penned dozens of songs that excoriated bosses and capitalism and wrote the well-known lyric “You'll get pie in the sky when you die.” His conviction was so controversial that President Woodrow Wilson twice wrote to Utah's governor to urge him to spare Hill’s life, and unions as far away as Australia protested on his behalf. After his death, Hill was immortalized in poetry and song, including the 1936 ballad embraced by Ms. Baez, Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and others: “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.” In the letter found by Mr. Adler, Hill’s sweetheart, Hilda Erickson, wrote that Hill had told her he had been shot by her former fiancé, Otto Appelquist — someone she had broken off with a week earlier and who had asked her “if I liked Joe better than him.” In her letter, she added, “I heard Joe tease Otto once that he was going to take me away from him.” Historians say the letter is groundbreaking because it is apparently the first time anyone has stepped forward to explain exactly how and why Hill was shot. Neither Hill nor Ms. Erickson testified at his trial, although Hill did tell the doctor who treated his wound that a rival suitor had shot him. The prosecution maintained that Hill had been shot by the grocer’s son, even though the police never found any bullet cartridges or traces of blood, other than the victims’, at the murder scene. Prosecutors used Hill’s silence to persuade jurors that he must have murdered the grocer. Ms. Erickson wrote the letter in 1949 to Aubrey Haan, a professor who was researching a book on Hill. The book was never published, and Mr. Adler found the letter in papers stored in the professor's daughter's attic. “When I first read the letter, it was a ‘holy cow’ moment because all these years people wondered about what happened that night,” Mr. Adler said in an interview. In his book, which Bloomsbury will publish on Tuesday, Mr. Adler also laysout what historians say is highly incriminating new information about the person police originally suspected of the two murders, Frank Z. Wilson. The police arrested Mr. Wilson the night of the murders after they found him walking without an overcoat near the grocery. They also found a bloody handkerchief on him. Mr. Adler said Mr. Wilson had lied repeatedly to the authorities after they arrested him, but they soon released him for reasons that remain unclear. Mr. Adler also discovered that Mr. Wilson had used at least 16 aliases during his many arrests and convictions, several for robbing trains. He was later involved in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, with a getaway car registered under an alias he often used. “His research is just incredible — it expands what we know in really dramatic ways,” said John R. Sillito, co-author of a new book on radicalism in Utah and a retired archivist at Weber State University in Ogden. “It builds a strong case that Wilson should have been the prime suspect.” Hill declined to testify at his trial, standing on the principle that he should not have to prove his innocence, especially when he believed that the prosecution could not possibly prove he was guilty with the limited evidence it had. Mr. Adler's book suggests that Hill also did not testify partly because he wanted to safeguard Ms. Erickson’s privacy. She was in her early 20s at the time, the niece of the two Swedish brothers he was boarding with. Rolf Hagglund, a grandnephew of Hill’s who lives in Stockholm, has read galleys of the new book and welcomed its findings. “From the start, people knew he was set up,” Mr. Haglund said in a telephone interview. “This book presents the strongest case so far that there was an alternative shooter and how Joe was shot and why he was shot.” (Hill immigrated to the United States from Sweden in 1902, changing his name from the original, Joel Haglund.) But John Arling Morrison, a grandson of the murdered grocer, put little stock in Mr. Adler's findings, “Joe Hill was the one who murdered our grandfather anddestroyed the economy of our family,” said Mr. Morrison. Mr. Adler, a Denver resident, decided to write about Hill after reading Bob Dylan’s “Chronicles,” which argued that the Hill case was a miscarriage of justice. “Initially I saw the book as a murder mystery, and I saw myself in the role of gumshoe,” Mr. Adler said. “I also wanted to explore how Hill went from being an anonymous worker to finding his voice as a songwriter to becoming a working- class hero to becoming, ultimately, a martyr.” Like many historians, Gibbs M. Smith, author of a Hill biography, said the trial was unfair. “Under today’s laws of evidence, he never would have been convicted and executed,” Mr. Smith said. Historians have observed that the judge unjustifiably ruled against Hill on evidentiary questions and that the prosecution coached witnesses to say they saw Hill near the grocery that night. Some students of the case say one reason for Hill’s silence may have been a belief that he could do more for labor's cause as a martyr than alive. At the time, the LW.W, had fewer than 20,000 members, but it was detested by business leaders because it pushed miners, lumberjacks and railway workers to use strikes, slowdowns and sabotage to pressure employers to improve pay and conditions. Shortly before his execution, Hill wrote supporters an emotional note, saying, “Don't waste time mourning, organize,” which later became the union catchphrase, “Don’t Mourn, Organize.” Correction: September 1, 2011 A picture caption on Saturday with an article about new questions surrounding the murder case that resulted in the execution of the union activist Joe Hill in 1915 misidentified the city in Colorado where some of his ashes were scattered at a cemetery. It is Lafayette, not Denver. Aversion of this article appears in print on August 27, 2011, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Examining a Labor Hero's Death. © 2016 The New York Times Companyhife Yonse, September 90, 1913, Mons Willies Reezoctruily ase if 1: would not be possible te postpane excaition of Jowesh Hillatron, who I understand d# a Syedieh sujet, until the Seedist Kintster hap an oportunity to srase Bit view o° the onse fully to your Exsellenoy. ‘yoonany ¥ILsoR. orriciar,