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...seen leaving a nearby tavern with Lang, a Chicago dock worker, and a speedy investigation turned up bloodstained clothing in his apartment. Lang's alibi? He had none. But then he could not talk. Nor could he hear, read, write or use sign language. Lang was a deaf-mute who communicated solely by gestures and rough drawings. Because of this severe disability, he was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and placed in a state psychiatric hospital. Doubting his guilt, the deaf-mute's lawyer pressed for a trial, which the Illinois Supreme Court finally ordered...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Law: Unlocking a Prisoner of Silence | 1/17/1977 | See Source »

...long. Within five months, the deaf-mute was arrested again and charged with strangling to death another prostitute, whose body was found stuffed in the closet of a $4.49-for-four-hours room in a Chicago hotel. Once more the evidence against Lang was strong: the day before the body was discovered, he and the victim registered at the hotel; Lang left alone. Again police found bloodstains on his clothing. In January 1972 he was tried, convicted and then sentenced to 14 to 25 years. But in February 1975 an Illinois Appellate Court reversed that conviction on grounds that...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Law: Unlocking a Prisoner of Silence | 1/17/1977 | See Source »

Last month the deaf-mute was back in a Cook County courtroom, sitting impassively (occasionally wrinkling his nose at policemen he had seen before) as Circuit Judge Joseph Schneider ruled on his fate. On the basis of medical testimony from doctors and therapists who had observed Lang over a seven-month period, Schneider found that while the accused murderer has "manifested dangerous behavior," he has at least an average intelligence and is not insane. Another promising finding: for the first time since he was arrested in 1965, Lang has seemed ready to learn sign language, quickly picking up 100 basic...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Law: Unlocking a Prisoner of Silence | 1/17/1977 | See Source »

...trial. To that end, the judge ordered the Department of Mental Health to come up with a special educational program for Lang. Beaming over the judge's decision, Donald Paull, one of Lang's lawyers, flashed a victory sign to his client. But the small, muscular deaf-mute, who has spent almost a decade in one lockup or another, only shook his head, shrugged and frowned. Lang remained in confinement, but this week the court is scheduled to decide when and where his schooling will begin...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: The Law: Unlocking a Prisoner of Silence | 1/17/1977 | See Source »

...years ago, nothing but insults have been exchanged by Santiago and Moscow. So when Strongman Pinochet ostentatiously offered to give the Kremlin his country's top Communist prisoner in exchange for a jailed Russian writer last month, his proposal was widely dismissed as a futile gesture designed to mute critics of his oppressive regime. Last week the improbable bargain was consummated. In exchange for the release of Chilean Communist Party Chief Luis Corvalán, 60, the Kremlin freed Dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, 33, who was serving a seven-year sentence for "anti-Soviet agitation...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: DIPLOMACY: Objects of Barter | 12/27/1976 | See Source »

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