Word: chessman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Your story on Caryl Chessman [Feb. 29] brought to mind Mark Twain's comments in Tom Sawyer: "The petition [for Injun Joe's pardon] had been largely signed; many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a committee of sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail around the Governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample his duty under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself, there would have been plenty of weaklings ready...
Perhaps we should grant Caryl Chessman a full pardon and deport him to Uruguay, or Brazil, or the Vatican, or London, where he is more fully appreciated. Perhaps they would like to have Governor Brown also...
...Selfstyled descendant of famed Poet John Greenleaf Whittier," Caryl Chessman is not only a criminal but also a phony. John Greenleaf Whittier never married, and therefore no one would ever believe that he left any descendants...
...upon the weak, the poor, the ignorant and against racial minorities. Beyond its horror and incivility, it has neither protected the innocent nor deterred the wicked." As he promised to do when he yielded to global clamor and put off for 60 days the execution of Kidnaper-Author Caryl Chessman last month (TIME, Feb. 29), Brown was asking the legislature to reconsider the state's death penalty-and, in so doing, to give him inferentially some guidance on how to dispose of the keen-minded kidnaper-sex pervert who had managed to delay his execution for 11½ years...
...legislature's reaction to Brown's plea was icy. Speaking the mood of hostile lawmakers. Republican Assemblyman Bruce F. Sumner charged that Democrat Brown had "ducked his responsibility," put the legislature "in the unfair position of being a court of last resort for Chessman." Brown's bill, which would mean life imprisonment for Chessman and 21 others condemned (including one woman), was sent to the senate judiciary committee. Said Chairman Edwin J. Regan, a Democrat, who scheduled a hearing this week: "I would think that if the bill were not reported out by the committee, that would...