Dominic Daley was an Irishman who emigrated to America and lived and worked in Boston. He and James Halligan were arrested on November 12, 1805 and convicted for the murder of Marcus Lyon. They protested their innocence, Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus

Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus

Jean-Louis Anne Madelain Lefebvre de Cheverus , French ecclesiastic, was the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boston, Massachusetts.-Early life:...

, a priest from Boston came, with great personal risk, to assist them in their last moments. An estimated 15,000 people came to Northampton to view the execution.

On St. Patrick's Day, 1984, Governor Michael Dukakis

Michael Dukakis

Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...

issued a proclamation exonerating Daley and Halligan.