To Execute or To Pardon

Joseph Arridy (; April 29, 1915 – January 6, 1939) was an American man who was falsely convicted and wrongfully executed for the 1936 rape and murder of Dorothy Drain, a 15-year-old girl in Pueblo, Colorado. He was manipulated by the police to extort a false confession from him due to his mental incapacities. Arridy was intellectually disabled and was 23 years old when he was executed on January 6, 1939, after Governor Teller Ammons refused to grant him clemency. Many people at the time and since maintained that Arridy was innocent. A group known as Friends of Joe Arridy formed and in 2007 commissioned the first tombstone for his grave. They also supported the preparation of a petition by David A. Martinez, Denver attorney, for a state pardon to clear Arridy's name. Another man, Frank Aguilar, was convicted and executed for the same crime two years before Arridy's execution. In 2011–72 years after his death—Arridy received a full and unconditional posthumous pardon by Colorado governor Bill Ritter. Ritter, the former district attorney of Denver, pardoned Arridy based on questions about his guilt and what appeared to be a coerced false confession. This was the first time in Colorado that the governor had pardoned a convict after execution.