In January 1844, the General Assembly abolished capital punishment for all crimes except murder and arson.
The labor movement saw the trial as part of their struggle against the commercially and politically powerful industrialists represented by the Sprague family.
At the trial in 1844, Nicholas and William Gordon were found to have ironclad alibis, but considerable circumstantial evidence was presented against John.
On January 23, 1852, after seven years of discussion and debate concerning Gordon’s conviction and the merits of capital punishment, the Senate Committee on Education issued a report.
The death penalty was reinstated in 1872 for murders committed while under sentence of life imprisonment,[2] but no one was ever executed under this provision.
[2] But the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the mandatory death sentence provisions of Chapter 280 (RI General Laws 11-23-2) violated the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the 8th amendment to the U.S.
Many pieces of legislation have been introduced since then to reinstate the death penalty for specific crimes, but none have passed.