For Carl, the death sentence was a relief and he resisted all attempts to have a stay of execution. “I look forward to a seat in the electric chair or dance at the end of a rope just like some folks do for their wedding night,” he said.
Even during the 1930s, there were several national organizations who strenuously objected to the death penalty on moral and ethical grounds. One of these groups, called the Society for the Abolishment of Capital Punishment petitioned the governor’s office for a pardon or a commutation of sentence, a fact that infuriated Panzram.
On May 23, he wrote to the society and said: “The only thanks you and your kind will ever get from me for your efforts on my behalf is that I wish you all had one neck and that I had my hands on it… I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform people who try to reform me, and I believe that the only way to reform people is to kill ‘em!”
On May 30, Panzram wrote another letter to President Herbert Hoover expressing his concerns over a possible change in sentencing. He said that he was “perfectly satisfied with my trial and the sentence. I do not want another trial…I absolutely refuse to accept either a pardon or a commutation should either or the other be offered to me.”
