Albert Wills McIntire (January 15, 1853 – January 31, 1935) was an American Republican politician. He was the ninth Governor of Colorado from 1895 to 1897. In 1896 Governor McIntire sent the

Colorado National Guard The Colorado National Guard consists of the Colorado Army National Guard and Colorado Air National Guard, forming the state of Colorado's component to the United States National Guard. Founded in 1860, the Colorado National Guard falls under ...

Leadville Leadville ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Statutory city, statutory city that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only List of municipalities in Colorado, incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, Lak ...

due to violence at the Coronado Mine during a strike by the

Western Federation of Miners The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into ...

. Early in 1896, McIntire rejected a last-minute

insanity defense The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative Defense (legal), defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a mental illness, psychiatric disease ...

appeal of the Park County rancher

Benjamin Ratcliff Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

, who murdered three members of his local school board with whom he had quarreled over the education of this three children. After McIntire refused to intervene, Ratcliff was

hanged Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

at the

Colorado State Penitentiary Colorado State Penitentiary (commonly abbreviated CSP) is a Level V maximum security prison in the U.S. state of Colorado. The facility is part of the state's East Cañon Complex, together with six other state correctional facilities of various ...

Cañon City A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to ...

. He claimed that he had committed the murders to uphold the honorable reputation of his family.Laura King Van Dusen, "Benjamin Ratcliff: Park County Pioneer, Civil War Veteran, Triple Murderer; What Happened and Why", ''Historic Tales from Park County: Parked in the Past'' ( Charleston,

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

: The History Press, 2013), , pp. 127-134.

References

Governor Albert W. McIntire Collection at the Colorado State Archives
Retrieved on 18 April 2008.

External links

* 1853 births 1935 deaths Republican Party governors of Colorado Politicians from Pittsburgh 19th-century Colorado politicians American people of Scottish descent {{Colorado-politician-stub