Word: chair
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Communist settled confidently into the witness chair in Manhattan's federal courtroom last week and started his familiar spiel. Witness Anthony Krchmarek, a minor Communist functionary from Ohio, had come to lend his assurance that the party would not harm even a flea, much less overthrow a Government. He soon found himself talking into the teeth of some expert testimony from a fellow Ohioan: William Cummings, a Toledo auto worker who had spent six years among the Communists as an undercover agent...
...steam-bath heat of the Lexington, Ky. federal courtroom last week, fat, whip-brained Edward Fretwell Prichard Jr. sat with his eyes closed and his hands clutching the arms of his chair. A distinguished witness, perhaps the most respected man in Bourbon County, was addressing the court...
Last week, in the condemned row at Sing Sing, Squint Sheridan and Cockeye Dunn were ready to die. Danny Gentile had turned "canary" at the last minute, singing out his knowledge of New York's crime-ridden waterfront (TIME, March 7) to win life imprisonment instead of the chair. Cockeye Dunn's family wanted him to sing, too, but he refused. As for Sheridan, who had tried in court to take all the blame for the murder and had even testified that killing was "just like ordering a cup of coffee," there was never any thought of squealing...
Fluttering Moth. At Sing Sing, the weakest always goes first at a multiple execution, so frail, runty little Cockeye Dunn preceded Squint to the chair. Guards had just wheeled Cockeye's body into the adjoining autopsy room when Squint entered at 11:08 p.m. He looked calmly at the big oak chair with its eight black harness-leather straps, eased his fat hulk...
Just before the black mask came down over his face, Sheridan looked up at the bright light over the death chair. A moth fluttered about it. Sheridan's weak blue eyes followed the moth intently as it circled the light. Then the mask came down over his face, guards deftly snapped the electrodes on his arms and legs, and the dynamo started up with a low whine. At 11:11 p.m. the prison physician put his stethoscope to Sheridan's chest. "This man is dead," he said in a flat voice...