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Edward Larkman was convicted of the robbery and murder of Ward J. Pierce, the paymaster of the Art Metal Shop plant in Buffalo, NY.  Dorothy Littleworth, an eyewitness to the crime, said the killer wore dark glasses.  After police forced Larkman to put on dark glasses, Littleworth identified Larkman as the killer.  The identification was performed without any lineup.  Littleworth had said she had seen the killer's profile for only three seconds and his face for only two.  At trial, the jury asked for information on how Littleworth had identified Larkman, but they were not told.  The jury convicted Larkman after 43 hours of deliberation. Larkman was sentenced to death.

The court of appeals affirmed Larkman's conviction, without issuing a majority opinion.  However, two judges issued a minority dissent because they felt that Larkman's identification had not been established beyond a reasonable doubt.  In Jan. 1927, shortly before Larkman's scheduled execution, Governor Alfred E. Smith commuted Larkman's sentence to life imprisonment, as was customary when there was dissent on the court of appeals.

In April 1929, Anthony Kalkiewicz, a Buffalo gangster, confessed to participating in the murder of Pierce with four other men, none of them Larkman.  Larkman was subsequently denied a new trial because the new evidence was not presented within a year of his first trial.  However, in April 1933, Governor Lehman unconditionally pardoned Larkman, mainly because of the identification method used by the police.  (Not Guilty)  [10/08]

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