This week in 1920

“I am innocent of this crime. Let us hope and pray they will never do this thing to another man, innocent or guilty.”

— Richard “Rickey” Harrison, convicted of murder, electric chair, New York.
Executed May 13, 1920

As Harrison and four other gunmen robbed a private Manhattan social club, police arrived, and the ensuing gun battle left one patron dead. Prosecutors contended, in a reconstruction of the incident, that Harrison fired the fatal shot. His fellow accomplices received jail sentences, but Harrison, age twenty-six, faced capital punishment.

As he left death row, fellow condemned inmates shouted, “Good-bye Rickey, we know you are innocent!” He replied: “It is the best thing that ever happened to me.”