The First Legal Hanging

Jose Forner

The scaffold was erected on the summit of Russian Hill, a site that offered a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay; and—more to the point, considering the practicalities of an 1850s-era execution—it already held the decades-old graves of Russian sailors who had died while surreptitiously hunting sea otter in the Bay, during the Spanish period. The grave of another lawless sinner would almost be appropriate.

José Forner (or Forni), the condemned, was allowed the customary last words, in his case a rambling denial of guilt, beginning with “You have come to see an innocent man die,” and ending with, “World, farewell,” just before he dropped through the trap.

The date was December 10, 1852, and Forner’s was the first legal execution in San Francisco, meaning it followed the statutory procedures of the new state of California. He was indicted by a grand jury; tried and convicted by a lawfully assembled jury, sentenced by a sitting judge of the District Court; and his execution was officially carried out by the authorized county sheriff.

Previous killings in the city had mostly been dealt with by mob rule mentality. Just the previous year, an organization calling itself the Committee of Vigilance, had dispensed extrajudicial hangings and other punishments, in complete defiance of California’s new, legislated procedures unopposed, partly because the turbulent environment of the gold rush had engendered a certain wild character; a general recklessness of conduct. Personal quarrels were frequent among men who, as a matter of course, carried guns and knives concealed on their person. Duels, although illegal, were common.

Forner, a Spaniard, was hanged for the stabbing death of José Rodriguez (sometimes reported as José Atari), a Mexican, in broad daylight on the previous September 13, during a dispute over money. He pled not guilty by reason of self-defense, and at trial, described the details of what happened that afternoon.

He said he was walking alone through a neighborhood south of Market Street, when he noticed a man staring at him. This man, a stranger to him, approached him in an overly-familiar fashion, inviting him for a drink. Forner, cautious because he was wearing a money belt containing some $400 dollars he had earned from his job as a confectioner, declined, saying he must instead answer a call of nature. Walking away to a sand hill, he removed his money belt and a concealed knife, laying both on the ground. The stranger, José Rodriguez, came running up to Forner as he was finishing dressing, having already secured the money belt on his person. Rodriguez seized the knife still on the ground, demanded Forner’s money, then knifed him in the calf, drawing blood. Forner begin screaming, whereupon the attacker dropped the knife and fled down the sand hill. Enraged by the entire episode, Forner picked up the fallen knife and ran in pursuit of his attacker. They struggled; Rodriguez tried to get the knife away, and Forner stabbed him to save his own life.   

But the Spaniard’s version of events differed from other testimony presented in court. Witnesses said they saw the Mexican fleeing—yelling cries of fear and distress—and saw José Forner chasing him, wielding a drawn dagger. They saw Rodriguez fall down, and while he was prostrate and helpless, saw Forner plunge the dagger into his body eleven times. Some of the testimony was circumstantial. When arrested, José Forner, a native of Valencia, Spain, was found with a Mexican-style sash—a style not popular in his own culture—that contained $350. In a particularity damning piece of testimony, a gambling hall dealer claimed to have seen Forner follow Rodriguez out the door, while the victim was wearing the very same sash.

The jury found Forner guilty of willful and deliberate murder, and on October 18, Judge Delos Lake sentenced José Forner to death, the only penalty for murder prescribed by statute. As revolting as it might sound to us now, executions have been public entertainment for millennia, and still were in the mid-nineteenth century. Just before the execution, the gallows—which had originally been erected on the Summit of Russian Hill—was removed about 100 yards toward the west, so that it was not visible from the principal portions of the city. A very large crowd, estimated at between six to ten thousand people, turned out to watch. It was reported that at least one-fourth of them appeared to be youths, women and children.

Gruesome? We say so, but consider modern-day entertainment. Lots of western films have hanging scenes, some more explicit than others; and whether the script is executing the truly bad guy, or (almost) wrongfully stringing up the innocent hero, we sit on the edge of our chairs and watch with only a small shiver of revulsion, relieved to know that our voyeurism is only make-believe.