UBC: April Moore, Folsom's 93

[truepenny]

Folsom's 93: The Lives and Crimes of Folsom Prison's Executed Men by April Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


[Website: folsoms93.com.]

Does what it says on the tin. 93 convicted murderers you have almost certainly never heard of. The mug shots of all 93 are the best reason to pick up this book if you happen to find it.

Some of these 93 men were clearly guilty; some of them were guilty but insane (by 21st century standards); a couple were pretty clearly insane even by early 20th century standards (but were hanged anyway). It's not always easy to tell from Moore's writing whether her account of a given crime is what did happen or what the prosecution alleged happened, so I can't say for certain whether any of these 93 men were actually innocent of the murders for which they were hanged. (The cavalier pre-Miranda treatment of defendants' rights did on several occasions make my skin crawl.)

I am not a fan of the death penalty, and the evidence provided by this book certainly did not change my mind. Several of these murderers are horrifying (Elton M. Stone, David Fountain, Adolph Julius Weber, Earl Budd Kimball, Tellie McQuate, Walter Lewis), but so is Governor Friend Robinson, who, despite being a Quaker, was such a blind believer in capital punishment that he refused on principle to listen to any appeals. For that matter, so is Governor James "Sunny Jim" Rolph, who was opposed to the death penalty, and was generous with reprieves, but who thought that lynching was perfectly okay. And one's understanding of Rolph's opposition to the death penalty changes a little bit when he says things like, "I'm not inclined to let men hang when their crimes involve infidelity of their wife and breaking up of their home." Because if it's your wife's fault you murdered her, then surely you must be more deserving of mercy than other murderers. [/sarcasm]

Also, hanging, where you might die instantly, but you might just as easily hang there, strangling, for as much as fifteen minutes, is surely one of the least merciful forms of execution available.



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Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Given what I know of the problems with both electrocution and lethal injection, I find myself wondering if the guillotine isn't actually the most merciful method we've yet developed. But it mutilates the body, and in our squeamish modern age, we like to pretend that if there's no blood, what we're doing isn't really that bad.

[libris-leonis.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting piece on that very point (the combination of humaneness and gruesomeness forces us to confront the reality of the death penalty while, in reality, making it less tortuous, though no more ethical): http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-bringing-back-the-guillotine/361569/

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

I know this is going to sound really odd, but can you look up Albert Kessell for me? He was the first man electricuted in the California electric chair. He was in Folsom for kidnapping, then tried to escape with some others and they killed the warden. Apparently he was a distant cousin of mine.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

He wasn't executed in Folsom (http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Facilities_Locator/FSP.html), so he isn't officially in the book. However, he does get a mention. The escape attempt was September 19, 1937 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folsom_State_Prison#September_19.2C_1937). They killed the warden, Clarence Larkin (who had been a guard at Folsom for 21 years before he was appointed warden in 1936, and who was respected and liked by the inmates) and a guard named H. E. Martin. Two of the seven prisoners (Clyde Stevens and Benny Kucharski) were shot by the guards; the other five were executed in San Quentin on December 2, 1938 (Albert Kessell and Robert Lee Cannon), December 9 (Wesley Eudy and Fred Barnes), and December 16 (Ed Davis (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=131686419). Albert Kessell (http://www.darkvomit.com/images/uploads/newkillers6/albertkessellphotolot4a.jpg) (or Kissell, apparently, if you look closely at the caption there (http://www.darkvomit.com/images/uploads/newkillers6/albertkessellphotolot6.jpg)) and Robert Lee Cannon were the first two men executed by gas chamber in California (http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/12/02/1938-robert-lee-cannon-albert-kessell-first-gas-chamber-california/). The San Quentin gas chamber (http://friendsofcalarchives.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/gettyimages_78963491.jpg) took two at a time.

The witnesses, including men who had witnessed dozens of hangings, were horrified. (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/12/killers-die-in.html) It's worth enlarging the page of the Los Angeles Times (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/12/killers-die-in.html) and reading the article: "Spectators Sickened as Two Die in Gas Cell" (2nd pg (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/files/1938_1203_runover.jpg)). The Madera Tribune describes the execution as Kessell and Cannon being "choked to death in an inaugural doubleheader execution (http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=MT19381209.2.13)."

Kessell was 28. Cannon was 29. Kessell was a bank robber. I can't actually find anything that tells me what Cannon was serving time in Folsom for. Wikipedia suggests that either Kessell or Cannon murdered police officer James Hill, but its own article on Ed Davis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Davis_%28criminal%29), the 5th man executed, says specifically that he murdered Hill. (Although it gets his date of death wrong: 1938, like the other 4, not 1937.)