Gregorio Cortez - Trial, Conviction, and Exoneration

Trial, Conviction, and Exoneration

Immediately following Cortez's capture, his supporters began forming organizations to publicize the case and raise money for his defense. At his first trial (in Gonzales), he was sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment for second-degree murder. While appeals were being denied, a lynch mob of three hundred attempted to hang him. He was also tried and convicted in Karnes City and Pleasanton. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned all the verdicts. His last trial was in Corpus Christi in 1904, after which he began serving a life sentence. Efforts to have him pardoned began with his incarceration and finally succeeded in 1913, when governor Oscar Colquitt issued him a conditional pardon.