When Utah sent a woman to prison for booze during Prohibition
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A century ago this month, Utahns launched a fight to free the state's first woman sentenced to prison for breaking Prohibition's liquor laws.
- Turned out, Irene Nunley was more of a give-her-an-inch-and-she-takes-a-mile kind of person.
This is Old News, where we scan the rap sheet of Utah's history.
State of play: After three liquor busts in six months, Nunley was on probation in March 1926, when police said they found more moonshine, stashed in a tree stump near her house in what is now the Marmalade neighborhood.
- Two months earlier she'd become the first woman in Salt Lake County to be charged under Utah's then-new "persistent offender" liquor laws. The judge had "softened" and suspended Nunley's sentence upon her promise she'd stop rum-running.
Yes, but: After strike four, the 36-year-old mother of three would enjoy no such mercy — despite her attorneys' last-minute announcement that she was pregnant.
- Calling it a "most unpleasant duty," the judge sentenced Nunley to six months in prison.
Friction point: The sisterhood rallied with letters to the pardons board, pointing out that, thanks to new laws, Nunley had served more time than any man convicted of the same charge.
- The board released her.
- Three weeks later, she was charged in a liquor bust again.
- And again.
- And again.
The big picture: Each time, Nunley avoided the clink.
- One case was continued because she'd just been married, and her new husband was murdered two weeks after her arrest.
- Then prosecutors failed to properly I.D. her.
- Then a judge took pity on the widowed mother of four.
Flash forward: Nunley disappeared from the headlines after Prohibition ended, until the 1940s, when she unsuccessfully ran twice for the state legislature.
- Her platform included labor support, welfare programs and "state laws to curb juvenile delinquency."