More people say they favour a pardon for Billy the Kid than oppose the idea after a U.S. state governor revealed he was considering the move.
Gov. Bill Richardson's office set up a website and e-mail address to take comments on a possible posthumous pardon for one of New Mexico's most famous Old West outlaws.
His office received 809 e-mails and letters in the survey that closed on Sunday. Some 430 argued for a pardon and 379 opposed it.
Pardon? Henry McCarty, known as Billy the Kid, could have his name cleared after 130 years after a poll set up by New Mexico governor Bill Richardson hinted at support for the move
But Richardson's term ends this week, leaving him only a few days to decide whether to pardon the Kid in the 1878 killing of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady.
'I might not pardon him. But then I might,' Richardson said last week.
THE KID: HOW HE WENT FROM OUTLAW TO FOLK HERO
Billy the Kid has been described as a vicious and ruthless killer - an outlaw who died at the age of 21 having raised havoc in the New Mexico Territory.
It was said he took the lives of 21 men, one for each year of his life, the first when he was just 12.
The more likely figure was nine, but this and many more accusations of callous acts are merely examples used to create the myth of Billy the Kid.
In truth the Kid, born Henry McCarty but later known as outlaw William Bonney, was not the cold-blooded killer he has been portrayed as but a young man who lived in a violent world where knowing how to use a gun was the difference between life and death.
He was a master of his craft and enjoyed showing off his gun-twirling abilities to his friends, taking a revolver in each hand and spinning them in opposite directions. But in his quieter moments he would meticulously clean his firearms.
He was also good-natured and generous, but his reckless 'they’ll-never-catch-me' attitude would eventually lead to his his downfall.
Relatively unknown during his own lifetime, he was catapulted into legend the year after his death in 1881 when his killer, Sheriff Pat Garrett, published a sensationalised biography The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid.
After this, Billy the Kid grew into a symbolic figure of the American Old West.
On the run from his enemies and the law, the Kid had made a living by stealing horses and cattle, until his arrest in December of 1880. Five months later, after being sentence to death for the killing of Sheriff Brady during the Lincoln County gang war, the Kid broke out of jail by killing his two guards.
But he decided not the leave the territory after his escape when he had more than enough time to do so, allowing Garrett to catch up with him at the home of Pete Maxwell in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14, 1881.
His successor, incoming Gov. Susana Martinez, has already said she won't be wasting her time on a pardon. The Republican said that state issues, such as a balanced budget and a controversial move of the state's DNA laboratory, were more pressing.
'There's an awful lot of work to be taken care of for us to be wasting so much time on such a consideration. It's just a waste,' she said.
The website was created in mid-December after Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn petitioned for a pardon, contending New Mexico Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace promised one in return for the Kid's testimony in a murder case against three men.
Billy the Kid, also known as William Bonney or Henry McCarty, was shot to death by Sheriff Pat Garrett in July 1881, a few months after escaping from the Lincoln County jail where he was awaiting hanging for Brady's death. He killed two deputies while escaping, but McGinn's pardon request does not cover those deaths.
McGinn, knowing Richardson's interest in the Kid, offered to look into the issue this summer. She petitioned for a pardon Dec. 14 after reviewing historical documents and other material.
E-mails debating the issue came from all over the U.S. and beyond, including England, Japan, France and New Zealand, said Richardson's deputy chief of staff, Eric Witt.
'This has clearly generated a lot of interest globally,' Witt said.
He said responses, pro and con, came from people familiar with the legend of Billy the Kid as well as from people knowledgeable about the territorial era and the Lincoln County War, in which the Kid and Brady were on opposite sides.
J.P. Garrett has said there's no proof Gov. Wallace offered a pardon - and he may have tricked the Kid into testifying.
'The big picture is that Wallace obviously had no intent to pardon Billy - even telling a reporter that fact in an interview on April 28, 1881,' he wrote to Witt. 'But I do think there was a pardon 'trick,' in that Wallace led Billy on to get his testimony.'
William Wallace said his ancestor never promised a pardon, so pardoning the Kid 'would declare Lew Wallace to have been a dishonourable liar'.
The Kid wrote Wallace in 1879, volunteering to testify in the murder case if Wallace would annul pending charges against him, including the Brady indictment.
McGinn said Wallace responded he had the authority 'to exempt you from prosecution if you will testify to what you say you know'.
Outrage: Outgoing governor Bill Richardson, who leaves office on December 31, decided to open the poll earlier this month
The Kid kept his end of the bargain, but Wallace did not, she argued.
J.P. Garrett said there's no written proof Wallace offered a pardon.
And, he noted, when the Kid was awaiting trial in Brady's killing, he wrote four letters for aid, but never used the word 'pardon'.
Some argued that circumstantial evidence points toward Wallace offering a pardon and said it was not implausible since Wallace pardoned other people involved in the Lincoln County War. Others questioned why Richardson would consider pardoning 'a cop killer', Witt said.
Anger: Susannah and Jarvis Garrett, grandchildren of Sheriff Pat Garrett who shot Billy the Kid dead, have lead the campaign against the pardon
McGinn has said the point is not who was killed, but whether a government has to keep its promise.'
