"I understand the gas chamber is available and I insist on getting a date"

In a videotaped plea from San Quentin in September, Stanley told retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge William McKinstry he wanted an end to the maneuverings by lawyers standing between him and the execution machinery four floors below his cell.

Stanley has spent much of his time on death row hand-writing letters to governors, attorneys general and lawmakers. He complains of corrupt guards and self-interested lawyers bent on riding the public defense gravy train that costs California taxpayers more than $100 million a year for death row inmates’ cases.

Once a backcountry guide and hunter with a vague resemblance to Clark Gable, Stanley is withered, his black widow’s peak and mustache gray and thinning. He suffers from diabetes, hypertension and paranoia.

“I disagreed with trying to get me life when I deserved the death penalty,” he told McKinstry in the video linkup from San Quentin, during which he also said he had been fighting his lawyers since his trial began nearly three decades ago.