This Day in History: 1959-10-20
New Jersey Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan refused a stay of execution for Edgar H. Smith of Mahwah, convicted in 1957 for the murder of Victoria Zielinski of Ramsey. Smith’s lawyers, Robert W. Hicks of Washington and William Richter of New York, immediately made plans to enter a writ of habeas corpus to correct what they claimed were errors in the trial record. The writ would be the next in a long series of appeals and applications filed in the cases, all of which, at this point, had been turned down in the Superior and Supreme Courts of New Jersey. Bergen County Judge Arthur J. O’Dea was expected to set a new date for Smith’s execution in the slaying of the Ramsey teenager in a gravel pit off of Chapel Road in Fardale. (Bristow)