Word: chessman
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...much interested in your March 21 story on Caryl Chessman, but I believe that his considerable lack of charm and/or innocence has little to do with the case. It seems clear that in a civilized world, capital punishment must be abolished because: 1) there is no proof that it is a deterrent to crime, 2) there is increasing proof that insanity, if only the temporary variety, is always present in a major crime, 3) there is always the ghastly possibility of mistaken conviction, and 4) individuals and societies who kill their fellow men, "legally" or otherwise, suffer a very real...
...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...
...bitterly anti-Chessman Los Angeles Times thought he might well be. "One atrocious but clever criminal called into question our judicial system and brought discredit to our laws," editorialized the Times. "Then ... he intimidated the Governor of California and drove the timorous U.S. State Department to declare him an international issue. And finally, he beheld the legislature in a session specially called to change the law so that he could be saved from execution . . . What will happen now? They would not change the law for Chessman, but it would be unwise to give odds that he won't beat...
...murderers must fear the death penalty) and to the opinions of law-enforcement officers (burglars seldom carry guns, and robbers sometimes use unloaded guns, because they do not want to risk killing somebody). Says Los Angeles County Prosecutor Miller Leavy, who argued the state's case against Caryl Chessman back in 1948: "Capital punishment is necessary in our community." In most states of the U.S., it seems, a majority of the legislators agrees with...