About Caryl Chessman:
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber, kidnapper and rapist who was sentenced to death for a series of crimes committed in January 1948 in the Greater Los Angeles Area. The last non-military prisoner to be executed in the United States for a crime other than murder, Chessman was convicted under a loosely-interpreted "Little Lindbergh law"—later repealed, but not retroactively—that defined kidnapping as a capital offense under certain circumstances.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 abolish capital punishment in California.