Court of Last Resort

Capital punishment, said California's Governor Edmund G. ("Pat") Brown in a 1,500-word special message to the state legislature last week, is "a gross failure," primarily inflicted "upon the weak, the poor, the ignorant and against racial minorities. Beyond its horror and incivility, it has neither protected the innocent nor deterred the wicked." As he promised to do when he yielded to global clamor and put off for 60 days the execution of Kidnaper-Author Caryl Chessman last month (TIME, Feb. 29), Brown was asking the legislature to reconsider the state's death penalty--and, in so doing, to give him inferentially some guidance on how to dispose of the keen-minded kidnaper-sex pervert who had managed to delay his execution for 11 1/2 years.

The legislature's reaction to Brown's plea was icy. Speaking the mood of hostile lawmakers. Republican Assemblyman Bruce F. Sumner charged that Democrat Brown had "ducked his responsibility," put the legislature "in the unfair position of being a court of last resort for Chessman." Brown's bill, which would mean life imprisonment for Chessman and 21 others condemned (including one woman), was sent to the senate judiciary committee. Said Chairman Edwin J. Regan, a Democrat, who scheduled a hearing this week: "I would think that if the bill were not reported out by the committee, that would be the end of it." Meanwhile, Los Angeles County Superior Judge Clement D. Nye set Chessman's ninth execution date: May 2. Just as predictable as the death of Brown's bill in the legislature was the likelihood that California would march toward Caryl Chessman's ninth execution date amid still another great worldwide uproar.

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