Musical accompaniment: New York Girls by Finbar Furey

I love St. Patrick’s Day! 🍀  My goal was to find a good Irish-themed story but I have a lot of mugshots to feature. It occurred to me the best way to proceed was to combine the two.

As luck would have it, the very first page I opened featured three Irish prisoners. One of them wasn’t too interesting, but these two were booked within a day of each other. They probably didn’t know each other–at least, their crimes were unrelated. Both of their stories do reflect the luck of the Irish… whichever way you want to take it!

On the left, you have J.F. Barnes, a barber who was born in Ireland. Barnes was drinking with Bert Cofer, a milk wagon driver when a fight broke out between them. Barnes shot Cofer in the back of the neck and the bullet passed through his right cheek. Barnes, who already had a bad reputation, had his bail fixed at $2,000 while Cofer remained in a “precarious condition.”

Cofer survived and Barnes was tried for assault to commit murder, but the jury found him guilty of assault with a deadly weapon instead. He was given the max sentence of two years in San Quentin for his crime. He served a year and a half, and appears to have been scared straight by his experience.

On the right, we have James Cox, a bartender originally from Ireland. Cox robbed a soldier recently returned home. He was initially charged with robbery but fortunately for him, he was connected. Senator Welch of San Francisco brought considerable pressure to bear to have his sentence lightened, and the charge was finally reduced to Grand Larceny.  The senator intended to go further, but Judge Hart said a “good deal of leniency” had already been exercised in his case and he refused to go any further.

The judge handed down the max sentence of 10 years, of which Cox served six-and-a-half.   As you can see from his mugshot, his criminal career was by no means complete! He went on to reoffend again and again.

I wish you all a capital day with lots of good fortune coming your way!