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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 1963)
2 g TIIUHSUAV, DtXliMBIilt 5, l3 MEDI'OflD MAIL TniBUNK, MLDFOHD, OREGON Brown Contends That Courts Have Repealed Capital Punishment By WEBSTER K. NOLAN United Press International SAN QUENTIN, Calif. IUPI) , The state of California, which ; legislators who have opposed almost every year executes . capital punishment have at more criminals than any other I tempted to pass laws making state in the Union, has sent; the death penalty illegal. The only one person to Die chamber this year. neither California law nor the i At 8:30 every morning, guards a special death row recreation state constitution provides for. ! march down the double row, ( room ; they can play ping pong, I For the past 30 years, state , awakening the men and handing '. checkers, scrabble and other The death of James Abner Bentley on Jan. 23 was the 500th execution at San Qucntin Prison. It happened in a stale where an average of eight per sons die in the gas chamber annually: and it happened in a prison where 44 men currently live on Death Row. In early November, Gov. Ed mund G. Brown, long an out spoken foe of the death pen ally, commented on Ihese un usual statistics. "It's a situation," he said. "that really means capital matter has been debated eith er in committee or on the floors of the senate and the as sembly 19 times. It has failed of passage 19 limes. Routine Continues Yel, while judges sit in sol emn contemplation, listening to (he pleas of attorneys for their condemned clients, and while legislators in Sacramento argue about the pros and cons of cap ital punishment, the dreary rou tine on death row continues. Despite attempts at compro mise, such as establishing a them their breakfasts. At 10:30, games; or they can visit a li the convicts are permitted to brary which has been set up leave their cells for three and for their exclusive use adjacent a half hours. to their cell block. They can walch television in ' The men are allowed to study punishment has been repealed i moratorium or abolishing capital I by the courts. I think fve i punislimcnt except in certain ' granted only two commutations cases. Capitol Memo By Zan Stark jk Oregon Faces kijl Fiscal Hangover this year, and all the rest have been stays by either the Su preme Court, the circuit court or the stale courts." Three days afler Brown made his statement, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execu tion to Harold A. Spencer, six days before his date with death. Then, within 10 days, the high court followed its action with two more stays, both for men scheduled to die in December. Grow In Number During the past year, in a stale where the arguments for and againsl capital punishment oflen rise to fever pitch, there have been so many stays of ex ecutions that prison officials have had bookkeeping prob lems in maintaining an accu rate count. The situation has created, in effect, a backdoor moratorium on the death penalty, one that Dcspilc parades of eminent i SALEM (UPI) The special wilnesses, such as Episcopal , sess:on of the legislature enact- Bishoi) James A. Pike, former San Qucntin Warden Clinton Duf fy, State Attorney General Stan ley Mosk. Despite 1 o f I y rhetoric. Brown: "A barbaric custom, our modern equivalent of the Roman circus, (lie lurid and emotional atmosphere in which society must render its most awesome judgment life or dealh (or one of its citizens." State Sen. Donald L. Grunsky, a vigorous opponent of abolition: "Let's stop worrying so much about these fiends, these killers, these sex maniacs and start worring about their victims and their families." Despite attempts at drama ed the economy moves demand ed by the voters' Oct. 15 tax referendum. The result could be a $40 mil lion fiscal hangover. That may be the amount of new revenue needed during the 1DH5-67 biennium just to main lain the austerity level of state services now in effect. Even if you eliminate all cap ital construction for state insti tutions and higher education that has been planned for, or postponed to the next biennium, revenues may be $20 million short of what will be needed. By junking capital construc tion, chopping basic school aid and trimming general fund in their cells or read newspapers and magazines. A few have taken up painting as a hobby. Others are content to write let ters, listen on earphones to the prison radio or talk to convicts in neighboring cells. At 2 p.m., a combined din ner supper is served. The din ner consists of the same kind of food served to the other 4,400 inmates at the prison, but the condemned men receive larger portions. The supper, which the convicts are advised to save un til evening, is generally com prised of fruit and sandwiches. The lights never go out on death row. But most of the men retire at about 10 p.m. All that remains in the silence are the 44 sleeping prisoners, a ser geant in charge and two gun rail officers, each armed with a rifle and a sidearm. In a state where several ex ecutions have attracted national and international headlines (Barbara Graham, Burton Ab bott, Caryl Chessman and Eliz abeth "Ma" Duncan), none of the present condemned convicts has achieved widespread notori ety. May Claim Attention But some of the cases may yet come into nationwide prom inence: Paul Kern lmbler, a 45-year-old truck driver who was con victed of the 1961 murder of a Los Angeles grocer during a holdup, received a stay of ex ecution when one of the witness es at his trial repudiated his own testimony. Joseph B. Morse, a 19-year-old San Diego youth, who beat his mother to death with a rock and then fatally bludceoned his young sister with a baseball bat. The nature of his crimes and his youth may become con troversial factors in future hear ings. John F. Vlahovich, Donald G. Franklin and Joseph Rosoto, convicted as partners in crime in connection with the 1959 slay ing of a southern California bar owner. The men were sentenced as conspirators not murderers and the actual killer has nev er been caught. A primary sus pect has been cleared by a vol untary lie detector test, and in addition, serious questions have been raised about the reliabili ty of testimony in their trial. Clyde Bates and Manuel Chavez have attracted some at tention because they have been on dealh row for more than six years. They were sentenced to die for throwing a gasoline bomb into a Los Angeles tavern after the bartender refused to serve them. Six persons were killed. Double Killers Several of the men on death row are double killers. Others are rape-slayers and still others killed during the course of a holdup (including Harold Spen cer, who murdered a taxi cab driver while robbing him of $4.81) . The latest effort to revise the capital punishment statutes came this year. The bill, intro duced by McMillan, called for a four-year moratorium on the death penalty except in cases involving double killings, kidnap murders, slaying of law enforce ment officers and killing in pri son. The assembly passed I h e measure by a close vote. But the Senate Governmental Effi ciency Committee killed a sim ilar bill. A proposal to put the issue to the voters did not even receive a formal hearing. Unless Brown decides to call a special session, the issue will not come before the legislature until at least 1965. On Death Row Meanwhile, the population on Death Row grows. At San Quen tin, 44 men are waiting; and at Corona Institution for Wom en, California's only other con demned prisoner, double-slayer Iva Kroeger, is waiting. Whatever their crime, they all know they still will have their day in court. If the past 10 months of court actions have any significance, this means they all have a chance, perhaps a good chance, to escape death in the tempo arily out-of-use gas chamber. i ailtiir.,, knlifnlc I Un Inrticl ,i turn A .-.l...l. ....... I m'tn.. M,. Mill. II, "hV,,V-J " . H . . U . U . I. m.n.Y i-, durj ,ne spccja sussjon proposed this year to televise a ,dorscd ,he governor's program ; Li La Ul hi LA ,f W ,$-yj i '4' ftff Ma J rll Is ii ? Li;J EiJ ri RJ pi, tf: , WjK iuyy w m a m CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON SAN QUENTIN mm' ssfSi : ... I v , i U . ' , - - - . , " lillJiliTJT-iliil. to slice the stale's $401 million general fund budget to about $360 million. Lawmakers also had to dip into next biennium's income for an additional $12 million to keep the reduced budget in the black. The $12 million, added to $8 million of one-shot revenues ap proved during the regular ses sion, means that through book keeping changes, $20 million of income that normally would have been collected during the 1965-67 biennium has been moved ahead to help ease the bite this biennium. This "rob Peter to pay Paul" move simply means the state's income will be $20 million short next biennium. Legislative Fiscal Officer Ken neth Bragg estimated the slate's revenues next biennium may be about $370 million. He estimated a $411 million general fund budget would be needed just to maintain cut-back services. This means the 19G3 legisla ture will start off more than $40 million short of what it needs to help keep Ihe stale's books m the black. Brace: is uuick to point out there are many variables that could change this picture, fed eral income tax cuts could in crease Ihe state's tax revenues. Further delay of building pro jects could case spending re quirements. But the inescapable fact re mains that normal increases in population at state institutions, schools, colleges and universi ties will demand more spending. Lawmakers will be spending much of their time between now and the next legislative session trying to find an answer. It seems Ihere mav be no way to avoid having to raise additional revenue. Taxpayers arc going to have lo begin thinking now about such unhappy possibilities as sales and cigarette taxes, and revision of Ihe slate's personal income tax laws. While the Oct. 15 referendum resulted in economy, another tax referendum in quick order could result in fiscal disaster for Oregon. FAMOUS PRISON Convict author Caryl Chessman (top) is shown behind bars of prison cell in this picture taken from n scene in motion picture titled "Justice and Caryl Chessman." Bottom picture shows entrance to the famous California Slate Prison. it'PI Scientists Exchange Research Findings EUGENE Eleven visiting scientists from Oregon, Wash ington. Arizona, Hawaii, and Al berta will exchange recent re search findings in three panel discussions Dec. 6 and 7 on the University of Oregon campus. The occasion will be the re gional meeting of the Division of Comparative Endocrinology of the American Society of Zo ologists lo be held at the Erb Memorial Student Union. The panel participants will d i s c u s s neurosecretions and neurohumoral effects in verte brates, problems in vertebrate endocrinology, and invertebrate hormones and iieurohumors. I Village Variety and Garden Shop 24" Till. 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