User:Jean Po/sandbox2

Billy Wesley Monk, father of three, was the last offender to suffer death for a non-letal kidnapping in the US and the last non-murderer to be executed in California, a few months after Caryl Chessman, also executed for kidnappings committed in the same circunstances.

Background
On June 24, 1951, when he was 16, him and his brother Lester were driving a truck. Lester fell asleep and Billy's head felt on rocks. Six months after he began getting blackout spells and then became moody.

Parallelly he started to have trouble with law: he forged checks in 1954, and the same year he attempted to hang himself; he got two years in 1957 for stealing in telephone booths and, in Chino, wrote a letter to his mother accusing her and Lester to having attempted to kill him in 1951 before sending her another letter full of affection.

Kidnappings
On March 14, 1960, in the city of Los Angeles, Monk threatened Mrs. Rose Schaeffer, 48, with a gun, robbed her from more than $16, forced her in a car and then told her he wanted "what [she had] between her legs"; Schaeffer then threw herself out of the vehicle at a red light, sustaining injuries needing an one week stay at the hospital.

On April 19, 1960, in this same town, Mrs. Katherine Sorena and her 3-years-old son were in her car when she had trouble with the lights; Monk then came over and told he couldn't fix the car. She thanked him but he kidnapped her in his car, beat her and forced her to fellate him under her son's eyes before penetrating her vaginally with his fingers and his penis; he then robbed her of $6 before leaving her at her home.

Trial and execution
Billy Monk pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in account of his head trauma and made several outbursts during the trial, where he was tried by the Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Brandler. On September 17, 1960 he was convicted of rape and kidnapping with intent to rob occasioning bodily harm, then a capital charge under the state "Little Lindbergh Law"; on September 29, 1960 the judge then sentenced him to die and confirmed this death sentence in late October 1960.

On July 20, 1960 the California Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. Described as "the only man on Death Row not convicted of murder", Billy Monk died on November 21, 1960 in the San Quentin gas chamber after nine and a half minutes. Before being executed, he was converted to the Assemblies of God by Rev. Jack Epperson, former Van Nuys photographer.

Signifiance
Billy Wesley Monk was the last offender to die for non-lethal kidnappeings, seven months after Caryl Chessman died, on May 2. On January 11, 1961 Rudolph Wright was the last to be executed for an offense other than murder, in his case assault by a life-term inmate.

On May 8, 1964 Ronald Wolfe died in the Missouri gas chamber for rape and, on September 2, 1964 James Coburn was Electric chairin Alabamafor robbery, and was the last offender to die for an offense not having caused death.

Between 1950 and 1967 nine offenders such as Edward Wein. or Richard John Jensen were sentenced to death for violating the Section 209, even though only Jensen was executed for kidnapping, robbing and raping a U.S. Marine

In 1976 the Supreme Court of the United States forbade the use of the death penalty in the cases of rape of adult women in Coker v. Georgia and, in 2008 extended this ban to any non-fatal crime not involving the State in Kennedy v. Louisiana.

Internal

 * Caryl Chessman
 * Arthur Gooch, the first kidnapper to be executed in the U.S.
 * Capital punishment in California
 * Phineas Gage
 * Kennedy v. Louisiana