CONVICTED RAPIST AND KIDNAPPER

A Question of Fairness.

The story of Caryl Chessman, who was arrested and eventually executed as California's "Red Light Bandit," captured national attention during the 1950s. The question of Chessman's guilt or innocence became less important than the question of whether or not he had received a fair trial. Chessman, in his efforts to avoid the gas chamber, became an author, a self-educated legal scholar, and a celebrity.

The "Red Light Bandit."

The "Red Light Bandit" was responsible for a series of crimes in southern California in the 1940s. He accosted couples parked in secluded areas, robbed them at gunpoint, and on occasion took the women back to his car and sexually assaulted them. He got his name from the red searchlight mounted on his car, the sort that police vehicles used. On 23 January 1948 Chessman, a small-time hood then on parole, was arrested in a car matching the...