When You Read This They Will Have Killed Me The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America

Echoes of Caryl Chessman have been present at every death penalty case and execution in America since he was delivered to the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison on May 2, 1960. If this defiant loner's death was not the very embodiment of arbitrary, cruel, and unusual punishment, then that claim can scarcely be made for any American subsequently exterminated in the name of the State's justice. In fact, few executions in American history have been as roundly protested at home and around the world as the killing of thirty-eight-year-old Caryl Chessman. Yet, until now, Chessman's story has been largely forgotten. When Caryl Chessman's stoic visage appeared on the cover of Time's March 21, 1960, issue, with the gas chamber as a backdrop, he was the most famous prisoner in America, perhaps the best-known in the world, and the very face of the capital punishment issue. A petty criminal convicted as the sexual assailant known as the "Red Light Bandit," his books have been translated into eighteen languages and his execution caused riots and denunciations of America around the world. As well known in his day as Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz," Chessman reinvented himself and, to an extent, reshaped the public's perception of the criminal personality. He was a major Cold War system-defying figure - championed by the Pope, Albert Schweitzer, Marlon Brando, Shirley MacLaine, Aldous Huxley, Steve Allen, and even William F. Buckley, Jr. - leading the way for such provocative figures as Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, and George Jackson. But because the injustice inherent in Chessman's case is nearly unimaginable to anyone who harbours belief in the American legal system, these echoes have long gone unheard. He has remained a footnote in history, until this first major book on him in decades.Bisbort, Alan is the author of 'When You Read This They Will Have Killed Me The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America', published 2007 under ISBN 9780786719402 and ISBN 0786719400.