[Ads-l] Convict

Wed Jun 14 05:31:02 UTC 2023

Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> Has "convict" shifted its meaning to mean simply someone convicted of a
> crime at some time in the past?

Here is a statement from 1889 which used the word "convicts". I think
the intended meaning was "convicts and ex-convicts".

Date: April 17, 1889
Newspaper: The Abbeville Press And Banner
Newspaper Location: Abbeville, South Carolina
Article: Curious Facts
Quote Page 2, Column 7
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Convicts cannot vote unless they have been restored to citizenship by a pardon.
[End excerpt]

This 1904 citation suggested that a paroled individual was still a convict.

Date: November 17, 1904
Newspaper: The Better Way
Newspaper Location: Minneapolis, Kansas
Article: The Best Kansas News
Quote Page 2, Column 3
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
Paroled Convicts Cannot Vote.
Attorney General Coleman decided that inmates of the penitentiary and
reformatory out on parole cannot vote.
[End excerpt]

The title of this 1910 citation was "Convicts Cannot Vote". Yet, the
body of the article described a person who had completed a term in
prison.

Date: September 21, 1910
Newspaper: Buffalo Evening News
Newspaper Location: Buffalo, New York
Article: Everybody's Column
Quote Page 13, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-buffalo-news-definitionofconvicts/126132126/

[Begin excerpt]
Convicts Cannot Vote.
Editor Evening News:
If a man 20 years old is arrested for grand larceny, is convicted and
serves three months In the penitentiary, can he vote when he becomes
21?
ONE INTERESTED

No. The law distinctly states that a person who has been "convicted of
a felony" can neither register nor vote unless he has been pardoned
and restored to citizenship.
[End excerpt]

Definitions of convict (noun)

[Begin Google Definition from Oxford Languages]
convict noun
a person found guilty of a criminal offense and serving a sentence of
imprisonment.
"two escaped convicts kidnapped them at gunpoint"
[End Google Definition from Oxford Languages]

[Begin OED excerpt]
convict, n.1
1. One convicted in a judicial investigation of a punishable offence. archaic.
2. spec. A condemned criminal serving a sentence of penal servitude.
3. A person proved to be wrong. Obsolete.
[End OED excerpt]

[Begin Merriam-Webster excerpt]
convict noun
1 a person convicted of and under sentence for a crime
2 a person serving a usually long prison sentence
[End Merriam-Webster excerpt]

Garson

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