Word: caryl
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...Mazes. Since July 1948, a cell 4 ft. 6 in. wide, 10 ft. 6 in. long and 7 ft. 6 in. high has been Caryl Chessman's world. In it he has, in his own words, "read or skimmed 10,000 legal books, and written between two and three million words." In the opinion of celebrated Liability Lawyer Melvin ("King of Torts") Belli, Chessman has become "one of the sharpest and best-trained lawyers I have met." With the help of various lawyers, self-taught Legal Expert Chessman managed to keep his case dragging back and forth through...
...Deathwatch. At any time during the past few years Caryl Chessman might have saved his life by appealing to the Governor of California to exercise executive clemency and commute the death sentence to life imprisonment.**** But Chessman's prickly, demanding ego stands in the way. "Caryl Chessman has not sought executive clemency from me," said Governor Brown last October. "To the contrary, he has declared that he seeks only vindication. This I cannot give him. The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming . . . His attitude has been one of steadfast arrogance and contempt." But with his mail running...
...proposal to abolish capital punishment, but even before the session started, Brown decided that he could not win. The lawmakers were sore at him for "passing the buck," as they grumblingly put it, and a poll showed that sentiment in the legislature was running 4 to 1 against saving Caryl Chessman from the gas chamber. Many legislators felt strongly that Chessman had been escaping justice too long. Facing defeat, Brown decided not to fight, tamely placated fellow Democrats in the legislature by agreeing to let his proposal be channeled through the senate judiciary committee, which was sure to block...
...Ninth Life. Brown said he was "deeply sorry" about the outcome. He was "powerless," he said, to take any further action in the Chessman case. "The regular schedule of executions will continue under the constitution and laws of the State of California." Under that schedule Caryl Chessman was notified once again that he would be executed. The date: next...
George Davis, best known of the three lawyers currently working for Caryl Chessman, was still full of plans for trying to save him, including a new appeal based on the claim that Chessman's twelve years under sentence of death constitute "cruel and unusual punishments," in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But Caryl Chessman himself seemed to have little hope for any of the plans. He seemed resigned to playing out his role of martyr to capital punishment. Standing at the barred door of his cell after he got the expected news that the judiciary...