The True Story of Caryl Chessman

The Transcript

With Chessman now on Death Row, Department 43 of the Superior Court in Los Angeles was faced with the problem of completing a transcript of the trial record so that the defendant could be given the state supreme court appeal review guaranteed under California law to every person sentenced to death. Ernest Perry, the court reporter who had died four weeks after the trial ended, had transcribed roughly one-third of the record. Judge Fricke had turned over the remainder of Perry's shorthand note s to the Superior Court Reporter's Association for evaluation. That body, after a careful study, had returned them to Fricke with the opinion that they were "completely undecipherable."

J. Miller Leavy, whose interest in the matter was keen because he had no appetite for trying Chessman a second time, came up with what seemed to be a reasonable solution. Miller proposed that Perry's notebooks be turned over to one Stanley Fraser, a stenographer who had once shared an apartment with Perry in Seattle where both had been employed as court reporters. Fraser used the Graham Pitman system of shorthand, which he claimed was "very close" in style to the Success method used by Perry. Further, since he and Perry had sometimes transcribed notes for each other in a pinch, Fraser felt that he was familiar enough with Perry's style to possibly render an accurate transcription of the rest of the trial.

Perry's notebooks were turned over to Fraser for a two-week period to allow him to study them. At the end of that period, he informed the court that he indeed felt certain he could do the job. The fee he asked for, because of the length of time it would probably take him, was $10,000. That was a nice piece of change in 1948, when a brand new car cost only $1,200, and most middle-class workers earned only about twice that much annually. Nevertheless, the County Board of Supervisors approved the fee, and Stanley Fraser went to work.

Seven months later, in February 1949, Fraser sent a preliminary draft of his transcription to Judge Fricke, who read it through and made notations on certain passages as he recalled them. Leavy, several trial witnesses, and two members of the jury, were also consulted about certain portions. With that input, Fraser began work on a final draft. That was delivered on April 11. It was filed with the court and a copy sent to the defendant on Death Row.

Chessman, as might be expected, exploded. Why had he not been personally involved in Fraser's work? How could this have been accomplished without him? After carefully studying the transcript, he composed a quite lengthy letter to Fricke in which he pointed out more than 200 errors he felt had been made.

Upon receipt of Chessman's letter, Fricke, in June, held a three-day hearing, at which Fraser was the only witness. Between them, and with the Chessman letter as a guide, an additional eighty corrections were made. Chessman, when advised of this, exploded again. Why had he not been allowed to attend the hearing? Of course, everyone knew why: he would have disrupted it at every opportunity. No one, it seemed, wanted Caryl around when they were doing anything important.

On August 11, Fricke conducted another hearing on the now finalized transcription, and declared that he was completely satisfied with it. The record was immediately filed with the clerk of the California State Supreme Court so that Chessman's automatic death sentence appeal could be considered. Chessman quickly filed a motion to "impeach and correct" the record.

While all this was going on, Al Matthews had contacted Rosalie Asher, the lawyer he knew in Sacramento who, like himself, felt that lost causes were the best causes to fight for, and Asher began visiting Chessman at San Quentin in the role, as Matthews had been, of an advisor. She counseled him on how to properly prepare and file motions not only in state but also federal court -- because that, as everyone even remotely associated with the case knew, was exactly where it was ultimately headed.

Chessman, determined to beat the gas chamber, was studying law at a feverish pace, looking for loopholes day and night, and driving the other Death Row occupants crazy with his constant activity, demands of the guards, tantrums, and general surliness and arrogance. He had quickly become the most disliked condemned man on the Row. And he was dangerous; in one scuffle with another prisoner, Chessman drove a sharpened pencil through the man's cheek. Anything was likely to set him off; his first year there, he trashed the Row's Christmas tree because it was not large enough to please him.

Even when the Protestant chaplain, Reverend Dallas Gladson, came to Chessman's cell with a telegram from Serl that poor Hallie had finally died of cancer the previous night, Chessman received little or no sympathy. He simply could not, or would not, get along with anyone.

Chessman had not seen his mother since the day she was rolled into court on the hospital bed and testified to try and save his life. It was a dreadful last memory to have of his mother. There is a rumor that Chessman wept in his Death Row cell that night.