Alcatraz_ A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years - Michael Esslinger [207]
Roucek: What do the minerals do to you?
Shockley: They give me marks on my body all over.
Roucek Note: Showed doctor a reddish area in his groin area which he claims to scratch.
The trial continued for over a month, and people across the nation followed its progress in the newspapers. Despite the efforts of several inmates who provided favorable testimony, Shockley, Carnes, and Thompson were convicted of the first-degree murder of William A. Miller on December 21, 1946. On the same day, Shockley and Thompson were given the death penalty for their role in the crime, and sentenced to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin on September 24, 1948. Carnes was spared the death penalty, and was instead given an additional life sentence due to mitigating factors, as he had shown leniency toward the officers held hostage, which ultimately saved their lives. Shockley and Thompson were transferred from Alcatraz to San Quentin State Penitentiary across the Bay.
A court order for Shockley’s death sentence.
The prisoners’ time on San Quentin’s “Condemned Row” was not spent idly. In October of 1947, Thompson and another inmate were discovered to be making a contraband key, as part of what was thought to be a plot to escape. San Quentin Warden Clinton Duffy had warned Warden Johnston that Shockley and Thompson were apparently plotting a “spectacular dash out of the Condemned Row.” Thompson wrote several letters to Duffy claiming that officers were trying to exploit him. In one specific letter he wrote that pictures from his cell had been confiscated following the May ‘46 events, and had been published in a detective magazine. He wrote frequently to his brother Horace in Alabama, and in nearly all of his letters he commented that he was the victim of a “frame-up.” The two inmates were afforded minimal interaction with each other while on Condemned Row. Most of their time together would transpire during the appeals of their death sentences.
The sentences of both Shockley and Thompson were appealed to higher courts. On March 10, 1948 the Ninth Court of Appeals confirmed the convictions, and on June 17, 1948, the Supreme Court denied their petition and ordered their execution. Nevertheless, Thompson continued to vehemently deny any role in the death of Miller. In a letter written to President Harry Truman on August 11, 1948, he pleaded that he had not had proper resources to defend himself, stating that he had only been educated to the third grade level, and thus that he was ill-prepared to deal with legal matters. Thompson added that even though it had been proven that Joseph Paul Cretzer had murdered the guard, he himself “was somehow found guilty” of the same crime.
On December 2, 1948 the Death Watch Squad moved inmates Shockley and Thompson into two adjacent holding cells on Death Row. It is documented that Shockley did not appear to fully comprehend his fate and that Thompson was nervous and spent much of his time with the San Quentin Chaplain. He had little appetite in his final hours, and reportedly chain-smoked throughout the night. Shockley refused any religious support, and spent his time meeting with a few relatives, including his niece Anna, who had supported him during the trial and lived close by in the town of Richmond.
On the morning of December 3, 1948 at 7:00 a.m., two years after the violent escape attempt, the two prisoners were seated in adjacent cells for their final meal. At 9:35 a.m., the cyanide pellets were fastened into place inside the gas chamber. At 9:50 a.m., visitors started to line the witness room facing the airtight octagonal steel chamber. There were three officers from Alcatraz in attendance to witness the execution. The two inmates were walked side by side into the chamber, with Shockley seated first, followed by Thompson. Ironically the next person to enter the chamber was Dr. Leo Stanley, who had helped to treat the injured officers during the events of ‘46. He affixed a remote tube stethoscope