Tonight I watched a true crime thriller called "Cell 2455, Death Row", an intriguing title that turned out to be the life story of Caryl Chessman, adapted from a book he wrote while in prison awaiting execution. Chessman's was a famous case, which was also made into a well-regarded TV movie in 1977 called "Kill Me If You Can", starring Alan Alda. Having developed a True Crime fascination in my teens, I knew of Caryl Chessman even though he was before my time. He was known as the infamous "Red Light Bandit" who haunted Lovers' Lanes in the L.A. area in 1948. When he was finally caught, and convicted on 17 counts of rape, assault and kidnapping, he was sentenced to death even though he never killed anyone, due to the prosecution's invocation of something called The Little Lindbergh Law (Google it).
But what made the Chessman case so interesting from a true crime standpoint was what happened in the aftermath of his conviction. Though he was a career criminal who had done time in San Quentin and Folsom prisons, mostly for armed robbery, at his trial Chessman swore he was not the Red Light Bandit. He acted as his own attorney, and though he lost his case, he learned a lot about law in the process. As a result, he was able, through appeals, to forestall his execution for twelve years, using only the law books and other legal materials provided him by the prison, in accordance with state law. He apparently was highly intelligent, which made him such a successful criminal in the first place. In addition, he wrote "Cell 2455" while on Death Row, and it became a best seller.
As a crime reader I only knew of him marginally. I never read his book and only knew the overview of his story. But the movie gives you the full picture (Hollywood-ized of course), starting in Chessman's childhood. He went off the rails as an adolescent, after his family sank into poverty during the Depression. His father attempted suicide and his mother was left a paraplegic following a car accident. With hardly any food in the house, he began stealing from grocery trucks. From there, he progressed to auto theft, and after that to armed robbery, which landed him in prison for much of his early adulthood. He has all the hallmarks of a career criminal, and as the movie begins, with the Chessman character's narration, we see that he wrote his book to try and understand how he got this way. "How did I end up here, on Death Row"?
The plot takes you through those steps, as Chessman looks back on his life on the eve of his execution. What you see - and what he discovers for himself - is that it was no one's fault but his own. If the movie is even remotely accurate, Caryl Chessman was a classic sociopath. Something was wrong with him from the get-go, and his crimes cannot be blamed on poverty or anything else. He comes to this conclusion himself, though to the very end he still insists he was not The Red Light Bandit. To admit that would have been admitting that he was capable of rape and extreme violence, and as a sociopath he wasn't able to admit it, though by the testimony of multiple victims he was clearly guilty. He was indeed The Red Light Bandit, and was a textbook example of an unrepentant, incorrigible violent criminal. The controversy in his case came from the fact that he was sentenced to death, even though he never killed anyone. He lingered on Death Row for a dozen years - a record at the time - and after using up all his appeals, he was finally executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin in May 1960. Governor Pat Brown had previously issued him a stay of execution, and his case made it to the Supreme Court of California. Later on, it was a major force in the anti-death penalty movement in California, which resulted in the abolition of capital punishment in 1972. The death penalty was reinstated five years later.
I used to have a viewpoint on capital punishment, but as time went by and I examined my thoughts and feelings, I came to the conclusion that it's not for me to say. As a young man (as far to the Left as you could get), I was adamantly anti-death penalty. Then I got older, and there came along a much publicized and horrible case in the early 1990s, the Polly Klass case. The accused in that case was clearly guilty, and I thought, "good riddance". I mean, I thought that about many horrible criminals, even when I was a Commie, but this guy tipped the scales, and it got me to thinking past the point of choosing a side based on my political position at the time.
Over the years, I've thought about it from time to time, though it is not something I dwell on. It's just that as I go along in life, I want to try and refine my thoughts, my feelings about things, to understand what I actually feel about something, rather than what society and the media would program into me.
And what I came to understand about myself, is that I cannot have a meaningful opinion on the death penalty. My opinion does not count, except maybe on the periphery, because I have never experienced the pain, which is beyond our comprehension, of having a loved one murdered. God forbid.
And not just the pain, but the sense of psychic dislocation, the horrific otherworldliness, of "this can't be happening"........and yet it has.
So I've come to the conclusion, even though as a Christian I'd prefer there be no more executions, that it isn't for me to say. Because it's never happened to me, though I know how I'd feel if I were in the shoes of the folks on the other side.
Which is to say, I don't know how I'd feel at all, except horrible beyond imagination, which is why I don't judge, nor have an opinion that I don't feel entitled to, on the cases of other people.
Sorry for the grim report, but I felt the need to extrapolate due to the content of the film, which is highly recommended. The Youtube print is Blu-ray and razor sharp. //////
That's all I know for tonight. Stay safe and well. Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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