Antonio's Grace: An Island's Plea for a Native Son

On January 7, 1916, Antonio Pontón, a Puerto Rican student at Albany Law School who suffered from mental illness, became the first Hispanic executed in the electric chair at the Sing Sing Prison in New York. Author Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini tells a fictionalized account of Pontón's story in her historical novel ANTONIO'S WILL, A Story of Sacrifice, Love, Tragedy and Injustice, the first book in The Antonio's Series. This second book, ANTONIO'S GRACE, An Island's Plea for a Native Son, is a work of non-fiction in which the author takes a closer look at the trial and clemency process in the Pontón case. In it, she shares photographs and a selection of the thousands of documents she found, containing clemency writings endorsed by over 21,000 people who prayed in vain for grace for Pontón. Tirado-Chiodini's research and analysis of the case one hundred years later uncover the injustices surrounding Pontón's murder trial and examine the viability of the death penalty as a just measure. The names and voices of clemency have returned after a century to plead once again for an island's native son. Will you listen? BONUS: The book's Appendix includes a transcription by the author of over 21,000 names of individuals and organizations who signed clemency petitions in the case, an invaluable resource for academics, historians, and genealogists.