Theodore Hamm uses the 1960 execution of Caryl Chessman as a lens for examining how politics and debates about criminal justice became a volatile mix that ignited postwar California. The effects of those years continue to be felt as the state's three-strikes law and expanding prison-construction pro[...]
A memoir by a death-row inmate, written in the twelve years between his conviction and 1960 execution, documents his daily life in a four-by-ten cell, his eight stays of execution, and his unwavering insistence that he was innocent of the crimes for which he was condemned. Reprint.[...]