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Cell 2455, Death Row
''Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story'' is a 1954 memoir and the first of four books written on death row by convicted robbery, robber, rape, rapist and kidnapping, kidnapper Caryl Chessman (27 May 1921 – 2 May 1960). Sentenced to death in 1948 under California's Federal Kidnapping Act, Little Lindbergh Law, Chessman became internationally famous for waging a legal battle to stay alive and fight his conviction and death sentence through voluminous appeals. Chessman became a ''cause célèbre'' for the movement to ban capital punishment. Before he was executed in 1960, he was the at the longest-lived death row inmate in modern history. Publishing history Chessman began writing his memoir after San Quentin Prison Warden Harley Teets told him he should do something with his life. Chessman wrote his autobiography, detailing his life in crime, with Teets's encouragement. The book was sold by literary agent Joseph Longstreth, who publicized the book, championing the con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caryl Chessman
Caryl Whittier Chessman (May 27, 1921 – May 2, 1960) was a convicted robber, kidnapper, serial rapist, and writer who was sentenced to death for a series of crimes committed in January 1948 in the Los Angeles area. Chessman was charged with 17 counts and convicted under a loosely interpreted "Little Lindbergh law" – later repealed, but not retroactively – that defined kidnapping as a capital offense under certain circumstances. His case attracted worldwide attention, and helped propel the movement to end the use of capital punishment in the state of California. While in prison, Chessman filed numerous legal actions of dubious merit that led to him being considered vexatious. One judge wrote in 1957: " hessman isplaying a game with the courts, stalling for time while the facts of the case grow cold." Chessman wrote four books, including his 1954 memoir '' Cell 2455, Death Row''. The book was adapted for the screen in 1955 and stars William Campbell as a character modelle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is ''condemned'' and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term ''capital'' (, derived via the Latin ' from ', "head") refers to execution by Decapitation, beheading, but executions are carried out by List of methods of capital punishment, many methods, including hanging, Execution by shooting, shooting, lethal injection, stoning, Electric chair, electrocution, and Gas chamber, gassing. Crimes that are punishable by death are known as ''capital crimes'', ''capital offences'', or ''capital felonies'', and vary depending on the jurisdic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memoirs Adapted Into Films
A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiography since the late 20th century, the genre is differentiated in form, presenting a narrowed focus, usually a particular time phase in someone's life or career. A biography or autobiography tells the story "of a life", while a memoir often tells the story of a particular career, event, or time, such as touchstone moments and turning points in the author's life. The author of a memoir may be referred to as a memoirist or a memorialist. Early memoirs Memoirs have been written since the ancient times, as shown by Julius Caesar's ''Commentarii de Bello Gallico'', also known as ''Commentaries on the Gallic Wars''. In the work, Caesar describes the battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Memoirs
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label that was previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1954 Non-fiction Books
Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head office of IBM. * January 10 – BOAC Flight 781, a de Havilland Comet jet plane, disintegrates in mid-air due to metal fatigue, and crashes in the Mediterranean near Elba; all 35 people on board are killed. * January 12 – Avalanches in Austria kill more than 200. * January 15 – Mau Mau rebellion, Mau Mau leader Waruhiu Itote is captured in Kenya. * January 17 – In Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia, Milovan Đilas, one of the leading members of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, is relieved of his duties. * January 20 – The US-based National Negro Network is established, with 46 member radio stations. * January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the , is launched in Groton, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cell 2455, Death Row (film)
''Cell 2455, Death Row'' is a 1955 American crime film noir directed by Fred F. Sears and starring William Campbell and Robert Wright Campbell. It is based on the 1954 book of the same name. Plot A death row inmate uses his prison-law studies to fight for his life. Cast * William Campbell as Whit Whittier * R. Wright Campbell as Whit as a Boy (as Robert Campbell) * Marian Carr as Doll * Kathryn Grant as Jo-Anne * Harvey Stephens as Prison Warden * Vince Edwards as Hamiton * Allen Nourse as Serl Whittier * Diane DeLaire as Hallie Whittier * Bart Braverman as Whit, as a Young Boy (as Bart Bradley) * Paul Dubov as Al * Tyler MacDuff as Nugent * Buck Kartalian as Monk * Eleanor Audley as Blanche * Thom Carney as Hatcheck Charlie * Joseph Forte as Lawyer (as Joe Forte) * Howard Wright as Judge Production Columbia Pictures acquired the rights to Caryl Chessman's book '' Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story'' for $10,000 in June 1954. Columbia planned the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harley Teets
Harley Oliver Teets (14 November 1906 in Terra Alta, Preston County, West Virginia – 1 September 1957 in Marin, California) was the warden of San Quentin State Prison from 1951 until his death in 1957. During that time he presided over executions performed in San Quentin's notorious gas chamber. Teets is probably best known for seizing the manuscript of one of condemned prisoner Caryl Chessman's books, arguing that since it was written on death row, it constituted "prison labor". Career Teets began his career in correctional service as a guard in various federal penitentiaries. He reached the level of lieutenant before being hired as a captain at California's Folsom State Prison in the 1940s. He became associate warden under Clinton Duffy at San Quentin State Prison, and succeeded Duffy as warden in late 1951. Teets remained warden until his sudden death from coronary thrombosis in 1957. In the 1930s, San Quentin had a reputation as a violent and corrupt institution. Duffy had d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Quentin Prison
San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Established in 1852, and opening in 1854, San Quentin is the oldest prison in California. The state's only death row for male inmates, the largest in the United States, was located at the prison. Its gas chamber has not been used since 1993, and its lethal injection chamber was last used in 2006. The prison has been featured on film, radio drama, video, podcast, and television; is the subject of many books; has hosted concerts; and has housed many notorious inmates. Facilities The correctional complex sits on Point San Quentin, which consists of on the north side of San Francisco Bay. The prison complex itself occupies , valued in a 2001 study at between $129 million and $664 million. As of July 31, 2022, San Quenti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cause Célèbre
A ( , ; pl. ''causes célèbres'', pronounced like the singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning, and heated public debate. The term is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for their precedent value (each '' locus classicus'' or "case-in-point") and more often negatively for infamous ones, whether for scale, outrage, scandal, or conspiracy theories. The term is a French phrase in common usage in English. Since it has been fully adopted into English and is included unitalicized in English dictionaries,''Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary''. S.v. "cause célèbre." Retrieved November 30, 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/cause+c%c3%a9l%c3%a8bre it is not normally italicized despite its French origin. It has been noted that the public attention given to a particular case or event can obscure the facts rather than clarify them. As John Humffreys Parry states, "The true story of many a ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prentice-Hall
Prentice Hall was a major American educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth century. In its last few years it was owned by, then absorbed into, Savvas Learning Company. In the Web era, it distributed its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service for some years. History On October 13, 1913, law professor Charles Gerstenberg and his student Richard Ettinger founded Prentice Hall. Gerstenberg and Ettinger took their mothers' maiden names, Prentice and Hall, to name their new company. At the time the name was usually styled as Prentice-Hall (as seen for example on many title pages), per an orthographic norm for coordinate elements within such compounds (compare also ''McGraw-Hill'' with later styling as ''McGraw Hill''). Prentice-Hall became known as a publisher of trade books by authors such as Norman Vincent Peale; ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Kidnapping Act
Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping (the abduction and murder of Charles Lindbergh's toddler son), the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, (a)(1) (popularly known as the Lindbergh Law, or Little Lindbergh Law)—which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in Missouri in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an international border with the Mexico, Mexican state of Baja California to the south. With almost 40million residents across an area of , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, largest state by population and List of U.S. states and territories by area, third-largest by area. Prior to European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, California was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. European exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries led to the colonization by the Spanish Empire. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821, following Mexican War of Independence, its successful war for independence, but Mexican Cession, was ceded to the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
