Caryl Chessman - Execution

Execution

Brown's stay of execution, along with Chessman's last appeals, ran out in April 1960 and Brown subsequently declined to grant Chessman executive clemency. Exhausting a last-minute attempt to file a writ of habeas corpus with the California Supreme Court, Chessman finally went to the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison on May 2, 1960.

As the execution began and the chamber was filling with gas, the telephone rang. The caller was a judge's secretary informing the warden of a new stay of execution. The warden responded, "It's too late; the execution has begun," meaning there was no way to open the door and remove Chessman without the fumes killing others. The secretary had initially misdialed the telephone number and this may have made the difference between there being time to stop the execution and not. The alleged new evidence, which prompted the stay attempt, appears in very few accounts.

Chessman's stay on death row, at 11 years, 10 months, was then the longest ever in the United States (and possibly the world)- a record that would be broken in the post-Furman v. Georgia era on 15 March, 1988 when Willie Darden, Jr. died in Florida's electric chair. (Like Chessman, Darden also claimed innocence of the crime he was convicted for, but Darden's case for innocence is arguably stronger than Chessman's.)

The celebrated author Dominique Lapierre visited Chessman several times during his incarceration. Lapierre was then a young reporter working for a French newspaper. His account of Chessman appears in the book A Thousand Suns.