Aaron Mitchell (murderer)

Aaron C. Mitchell (d. April 12, 1967) was a murderer, convicted of the February 15, 1963, killing of Sacramento police officer Arnold Gamble, who was responding to a robbery committed by Mitchell. He was sentenced to death, and was executed in the gas chamber. Mitchell, who was from Alabama, had a lengthy criminal record that spanned 20 years.^[1][2] Mitchell was the last inmate to be executed involuntarily before the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Furman v. Georgia in 1972, which invalided all existing death penalty statutes at the time.

During his murder trial, Mitchell testified that in 1947, at the age of 17, he was arrested for stealing a car in Missouri. He was sentenced to two years in prison for this crime and served 14 months. Upon his release, he committed another car theft in Tennessee, for which he was sentenced in October 1948 to three years on a chain gang. He escaped after 10 days, but was rearrested on other charges in Chicago in 1951 and returned to Tennessee. He served a total of 31 months, including six months for the escape, and was released in the summer of 1954. In September 1954, Mitchell held two employees of a country club near Denver, Colorado, then pistol-whipped the manager. He pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit a robbery and was sent to the Colorado State Prison. While on parole in April 1959, Mitchell was stopped by police officers, who discovered a stocking mask hanging on a metal hinge of the convertible top of the car he was driving, a loaded revolver behind the visor on the driver's side, and an unloaded gun on the passenger's side. His parole was revoked and he was returned to prison. He was released from prison in 1951.^[3]

Mitchell was the last person to be executed in California before the Supreme Court of California ruled in 1972 that capital punishment was unconstitutional (the Supreme Court of the United States made a similar ruling later that year). He was the 194th person to be executed by gassing in California (1937–67), and the only person to be executed in that state during the term of Governor Ronald Reagan (1967–1975). Both Reagan and his predecessor had declined clemency. Mitchell's case had been heard twice by the US Supreme Court and twice by the California Supreme Court.

Prior to his execution, he was visited by renowned psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl in lieu of last rites. Shortly thereafter, Mitchell held an unorthodox press conference during which he declared in a typewritten statement that "I have made my appeal to God and to the Governor. This is my last appeal to Man. Forgive me, for I knew not." The San Francisco Chronicle documented him saying "I don't really expect clemency from the Governor and I sympathize with him. He will be under criticism either way, but under much lighter criticism if he fails to act for me." He also feared that his own execution may spur "a long new line to the gas chamber."^[4]

When the time of his execution came, Mitchell fought with the guards and had to be dragged to the execution chamber.^[5] His last words were "I am Jesus Christ!" He was 37.^[6]

There were no further executions in California until 1992, when Robert Alton Harris was gassed. The gas chamber was ruled unconstitutional in California in 1996.^[7]

• Capital punishment in California

• O'Shea, Kathleen A.; Conrad, Ann Patrick Women and the Death Penalty in the United States, 1900-1998, pp. 74–76. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999, ISBN 0-275-95952-X