THE CHESSMAN CASE
513
suffering that cannot be denied. Somehow a justice complicated
enough to delay twelve years to study the "technicalities," should
have been complicated enough to refuse death simply because so
many delays were legally possible. A part of the protest was a
cry against rigidity and against the element of meanness in the
law's refusal to place the case in a human context. And there was
the
feeling
that Chessman might be innocent.
The claims for innocence:
1.
The transcript of the trial was
deeply impugned by the death of the court stenographer before he
had transcribed more than a third of his private notes. The trans–
cription and the enlargement were done, without Chessman's ap–
proval, by a relative of the prosecutor. 2. The description of the
red light bandit, given before the arrest, did not entirely fit
Chessman. 3. He was identified not in the line-up, but in hand–
cuffs. 4. He had committed a wide variety of crimes, none of them
involving attacks on women before this arrest. 5. He said he was
innocent of the crimes for which he was sentenced to death.
After Chessman died in the death chamber, Governor Brown
said he was sorry he had had no power to stay the execution
and claimed he said this even though he was fully satisfied of
Chessman's guilt. It was reported he then went for a lonely, sor–
rowing ride in the country. A detective who worked on Chessman's
case and later married one of the victims attended the execution
at San Quentin and said, when the death was at last accomplished,
"I'm satisfied."
The end was reported with prodigal fullness. As I gluttonously
read a dozen newspapers-a dozen newspapers all telling the same
story of the gas pellets, the winks, the final lip-read goodbyes, the
last struggles of the body-I remembered a hanging that had
taken place in my youth. On the morning a Negro was to be
hanged
in
the courthouse yard, other Negroes stayed at home
from their work for fear of the way the wind might blow. That
same morning a relation of mine went downtown to shop in a
department store. The Negro who would ordinarily have been
operating the elevator was at home, quietly waiting for the
dangerous day to pass. My relation fell down the elevator shaft
and suffered ghastly damage to her body and mind.
