The pardon was sought by her grandchildren, who have long fought to reduce her conviction because the repeated sexual, emotional and physical abuse Ellis endured was not considered during the trial or afterward, when she could have been granted a reprieve from the death penalty.

“Justice has finally been done,” Laura Enston, a granddaughter, said in a statement. “This pardon does not undo what happened 71 years ago. It does not restore the lives that were broken — the children left behind, the years lost. But it says, formally and finally, that Ruth should not have been executed; that the justice system failed her. That acknowledgment matters profoundly to our family.”

While from the outside this feels like little more than a token gesture, it at least seems to have brought closure to her surviving grandchildren - to have this failure by the justice system acknowledged and apologised for in a official and public capacity.

That means fuck all to her now.

So they still think she deserved to die in prison, but the slow way? :/

It would’ve been funnier if the condition was that she stay dead.

it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment

I wonder if there's an article out there which uses this as a headline, would be good for the "not the onion" communities

Interesting how she committed the offence in April and was hung in July of the same year. Different world back then, I suppose.

Oh cool! Performative bullshit!

This is one of those where you see the headline and assumed it happened during WWII, not the mid 50s.