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** In the interval between Preston and San Quentin, Chessman had married a teen-age girl. After he had been in San Quentin for five years, she got a divorce.
*** Chessman has managed to create an impression that the California statute has since been changed in a way that makes the Red Light Bandit offenses no longer capital crimes. Not so. The statute was indeed amended in 1951, but only to eliminate the possibility that a "standstill" robbery might be construed under the law as kidnaping.
**** Since Chessman had previous convictions on his record, Brown could not commute the death sentence to life imprisonment without the approval of the State Supreme Court—and that court has twice, by votes of 4 to 3, turned down clemency appeals by Chessman lawyers.
But if Brown notified the court that he wanted to grant clemency, he would almost certainly get the needed approval.