Across the U.S., some 250 condemned men are languishing behind bars, waiting to be executed for their crimes. Almost all of them could join in the lament of Paul Orville Crump, an inmate of Cook County (Ill.) jail: "I don't want to die. I want to live." To the State of Illinois, Crump is Prisoner 143384, male Negro, age 32a convicted murderer sentenced to die in the electric chair Aug. 3. Crump's fight for life has stirred the biggest and most surprising outburst of clemency pleas since the Caryl Chessman case two years agobut for far different reasons.
Nearly the entire...
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