<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">Courtesy of the Connecticut Tribune (New Haven, Connecticut) at:</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: nowrap; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; "><a href="http://tinyurl.com/9ab3h6t">http://tinyurl.com/9ab3h6t</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; "><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">------------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><h1 style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; "><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Should Governor Malloy Pardon Connecticut Witches?</span></font></h1></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto; "><h2 style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 5px; "><font size="3"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Activists push to revisit CT's season of the witch</span></font></h2></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Alice Young was the first to die at the end of a hangman's rope for something no longer considered a crime. Mary Barnes was the last; her life also ended with a noose around her neck.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In between, nine other people were executed in Connecticut for allegedly committing the same crime as Young and Barnes: witchcraft.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">All that happened during a turbulent 15-year period in the mid-1600s, a time in Connecticut when troubles like crop failures, Indian raids, disease and fatal accidents were considered evidence of a Puritan God's wrath against sinners.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><span style="text-align: left; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-align: -webkit-auto; "><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Today, a retired New Haven police sergeant named Anthony Griego is leading a campaign to formally clear the names of the people put to death for witchcraft in Connecticut.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We think these people were executed wrongly," says Griego, a 70-year-old Hamden resident who's been working on this witchcraft issue for seven years. "They were probably God-fearing people who went to church every Sunday."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"We wouldn't execute a person today because a neighbor's bull died or someone's beer soured," Griego points out.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Griego originally hoped to have all 11 alleged witches pardoned the way Virginia, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have pardoned people who were executed for witchcraft in those states.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But quirks in the way Connecticut handles pardons apparently makes that impossible.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">His campaign to clear the names of those executed as witches in this state has included a letter to the Queen of England and an appeal to the Connecticut General Assembly. Neither of those worked.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So Griego is running a lobbying effort to convince Gov. Dannel Malloy to issue a proclamation on behalf of those condemned to death as witches. He's also posted an Internet plea for Connecticut wiccans and pagans to send Malloy postcards reminding the governor, who's up for reelection in a couple of years, that they are also voters and constituents looking for a little something from their guv.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">(Back in 2000, a survey by one wiccan organization put the number of pagans and witches in the U.S. at more than 768,000, and reported that 86 percent of them were registered voters. Griego says a "fair guess" would be that Connecticut has at least hundreds of wiccans and pagans within its borders.)</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So far, the campaign to exonerate those executed in Connecticut hasn't made a dent. "To this day, I've never received any information from the governor's office," Griego says.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Andrew McDonald, the governor's legal counsel, insists Malloy has responded. Unfortunately, it's not what Griego and the descendants of those accused witches want to hear.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"While we can appreciate how passionate the people involved with this effort are, we have told them that we will not be issuing a proclamation," McDonald said in an e-mail last week, "mostly because the Governor has no authority under the Constitution, state statute or common law to 'pardon,' 'exonerate' or otherwise 'clear' individuals for their past conduct or perceived conduct."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"If they want to pursue a pardon in this case, they should seek legislative action in the coming session," McDonald added.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That route has already been tried once, back in 2008, and it never got very far, Griego points out.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Pardons in Connecticut, unlike a lot of states, are handled by a separate state commission. Officials of that board told Griego they have no legal authority to issue "posthumous pardons."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That effort to convince the Connecticut legislature in 2008 fizzled because lawmakers apparently "ran out of time," says Griego. "It was never voted on… and it kind of went into limbo."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When he contacted state Senate leaders to make another effort, they recommended he ask the governor for a non-binding resolution. And that route has apparently turned into another dead end.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But this former cop isn't about to give up.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Griego's interest in witchcraft in New England dates back to at least 1992 when he and his wife went to Salem, Massachusetts for the 300th anniversary of that community's infamous witch trials. The hysteria in Salem triggered 20 executions, 19 by hanging and one by being pressed to death by heavy stones.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One recent theory is that a yeast spore sometimes found on wheat may have triggered LSD-like hallucinations in the young girls whose accusations sparked the Salem witch hunts.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In Europe during the 1500s and 1600s, thousands of people were denounced as witches and killed. This past June, the Cologne City Council pardoned 38 women who had been executed as witches centuries ago, according to German news reports.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Massachusetts, like the Connecticut and New Haven colonies here, were in the 1600s governed by the laws of England. The English law on witchcraft was based on biblical injunctions such as, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Griego, by the way, believes in God. It's just not the God of the Christian Bible.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I use the title 'Pagan,'" he explains. "There's too much baggage with the name 'witch.' " His God, Griego says, is both male and female, and he believes that animals have souls and shouldn't be mistreated, and that we "should take care of the Earth."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Griego's determination to clear the names of those executed by Connecticut for witchcraft has more to do with his sense of justice than his pagan beliefs. He didn't realize that others felt the same way until he attended a 2005 lecture on witchcraft in New England given by Connecticut's state historian, Walter W. Woodward.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It was there that Griego met some of the descendants of those condemned as witches, and together they decided to make the effort to clear the names of the people who were hung.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The evidence and court records in these cases is often missing or blurred by time. But some of the circumstances, in Griego's estimation, appear "bizarre."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Take, for example, the case involving Lydia Gilbert.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In 1651, a simple training session for local militia in the Hartford area turned fatal when Thomas Allyn's musket went off accidentally, killing one of his buddies. Allyn was fined 20 pounds and barred from carrying a firearm for a year – a pretty stiff sentence in those colonial times.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But in 1654, a court found Gilbert, of Windsor, guilty of causing that man's death "by witchcraft," according to Griego. No other records are apparently available to offer any explanation.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A legislative researcher for the General Assembly wrote a 2006 report on witchcraft executions in Connecticut and listed Gilbert as "probably executed." Griego says she was most likely hanged in Hartford on or near the spot where the Old State House now stands.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Alice Young of Windsor was sent to the hangman in 1647. Mary Barnes of Farmington was executed in 1662 or 1663, according to the legislative report.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Here are the names of the other people executed in Connecticut on charges of witchcraft: Mary Johnson, of Wethersfield, 1648; John and Joan Carrington of Wethersfield, 1651; Goodwife Bassett of Fairfield, 1651; Goodwife Knapp, also of Fairfield, 1653; Rebecca Greensmith of Hartford, 1662; Nathan Greensmith, also of Hartford, 1662; and Mary Sanford of Hartford, 1662.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"A single witness was all it took to support a witchcraft conviction prior to 1662," according to the Connecticut legislative research study. "Beginning that year, Connecticut required simultaneous witnessing of the same incident by two or more people" to obtain a witchcraft conviction.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not surprisingly, there were no more of those Connecticut convictions after 1662.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What few court records remain do reveal that not everyone accused of witchcraft in Connecticut was convicted. Some were acquitted, others fled before their trials.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Those 11 others weren't so lucky or so quick, and the effort to clear them has been a long and frustrating one for Griego and his allies.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And that appeal for a pardon by Queen Elizabeth II?</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"I got a very nice letter back," Griego says sadly. The Queen's staff said that, in order for her to issue a pardon, the entire case would have to be reopened – which would be basically impossible because so many of the court records have been lost or destroyed.</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Anyway, said the letter from Buckingham Palace, the whole Connecticut witchcraft business was, after all, entirely "a colonial matter."</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">---------------</span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto;margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="text-align: left; ">Anthony Griego, of Hamden, wants Connecticut to pardon those accused of witchcraft in the 1600s. </span></span></p><p style="text-align: -webkit-auto;margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px; "><img src="cid:37314E66-F068-42D6-A9CF-3E5D0FCC4F4F" alt="600.jpeg" id="37314E66-F068-42D6-A9CF-3E5D0FCC4F4F" width="600" height="338"></p></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; ">------------------------------------<br><br><div>Seeya round town,, Moscow, because . . .</div><div><br></div><div>"Moscow Cares"</div><div><a href="http://www.MoscowCares.com">http://www.MoscowCares.com</a></div><div> </div><div><div>Tom Hansen</div><div>Moscow, Idaho</div><div> </div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>