Save Tookie? Read this first!!!

Williams, now in his 50s is currently on California's Death Row. It was in his teenage years that Williams befriended Raymond "Truck" Washington and several others local teens in the neighborhood. Williams has similar interest as the other group, including avoiding school, running the streets, drinking and at the age 13, sniffing glue.

On February 28, 1979, around 4 AM, Williams had his eye on a 7-Eleven store. After two already unsuccessful robbery attempts, Williams found the store clerk, Albert Owens, out front sweeping the parking lot. Owens, who now would have been a grandfather, was ordered back into the store where Williams told him to lie on the floor. It was after Williams collected less then $122.00, Williams shot Owens execution style in the back. He then shared the spoils of the crime with three others, who would later provide information about the crime to the police.

After the robbery Williams was quoted as having told his brother "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him!" Williams then made a growling noise and laughed hysterically.

A little over a month later on March 11, young Robert Yang woke up to the sound of screaming and gunfire. Robert lived with his family in a modest motel they owned on South Vermont Street in Los Angeles. Robert woke as Williams was robbing the hotel of $600.00. Before leaving, Williams murdered Robert's father, mother and his sister to prevent being identified. Williams used the same gun that he was identified as purchasing years earlier.

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically non-existent."

I read it. Let's be rational here, instead of letting our emotions get the best of us. The evidence strongly suggests that he was linked to the crime scene. It does not, however, prove that he himself committed the murders.

Maybe he's guilty. Maybe he's innocent. The sensationalism of posting pictures of the murder victims doesn't answer this question. Neither does the liberal spin, for that matter.

Regardless, I don't understand the personal satifaction many people on FR seem to have for having this person killed. Ignore your "death penalty" = "justice" belief for one moment, and ask yourself how your life will personally change if he is not killed, but remains locked up for life. Will gang violence end if he is executed? Will gang violence end if he is spared? In both cases, the answer is probably NO. Even if the claim that he is secretly running the Crips from prison (which is absurd because why would free-roaming gangsters listen to someone who will never see the light of day), someone would just take his place if he were executed.

I consider myself, for the most part, socially conservative. I oppose gay marriage. I oppose abortion. Both are detrimental to society. I also accept that Evil exist in this world, but you can't get rid of it, by putting it on Death Row. Some of you believe that the Death Penalty invokes fear in Evil, and that fear somehow prevents crime. This is not true. People who join gangs do not fear death any more than suicide bombers. The risks of being killed by a rival gang member are far greater than the likelihood of being killed by lethal injection! So if someone is willing to accept the former, they will certainly accept the latter.

No, to have a society that enforces "justice" by fear, you must go much further and not just execute those who are guilty of murder, but also kill those who are guilty of lesser crimes like armed robbery, drug possession, vandalism, gang association, etc. We could be like Singapore. That is the only effective way to enforce justice by fear. But is it the society we want to live in?

Many of you will say that Stan Tookie Williams must be guilty because the Court has decided he is guilty. If he IS innocent, then the chances are good that there other innocent people who have been put to death in the State of California.

Obviously, there are a lot of people who are not getting as much media attention that have better cases than him. But is this a good reason for him to die?

It may help you sleep easier at night thinking that no one will ever be executed who is innocent. But to actually BELIEVE this, you must believe that our justice system has 100% precision, and is thus as precise as God. Even supposing that our justice system was VERY accurate, this is an extremely improbable claim. No matter what standard you use, it is statistically likely that at some point, some people who are innocent will be executed. Maybe it is less than 10%. Maybe it is less than 1%. Maybe it is less than 0.1%. Whatever, it is some number.

And I'm not saying that someone who is innocent has been put to death yet in California. I'm saying I can guarantee you that if it hasn't happened, it WILL happen. That is, unless the Death Penalty is repealed. Just as sure as someone will win the lottery. Statistically guaranteed.

Maybe that doesn't bother you, if most of the time you "get" the right guy, it's okay to execute an innocent person every now and then?

But it certainly bothers me. It bothers me that we have to kill innocent people just to preserve some intangible and non-productive notion of "justice" in society. I think that former Illinois Governor George Ryan realized this. It is my hope that Schwarzenegger will realize the same thing.

Finally, think of all the people that were "proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" with eyewitness reports and other loads of circumstantial evidence, sentenced to die, and would have been executed except new DNA evidence proved they were innocent. This proves that without DNA evidence, the system is very capable of sending innocent people are sent to their death. I think that the at the very least, DNA evidence should be manditory to give someone the death penalty. Not the other way around, where you need DNA evidence just to save someone's life.

Is Stan innocent? And is he redeemed? Nobody knows the answer to either of those questions with absolute certainty. And maybe he isn't redeemed, but he could still be innocent of the murders he was convicted for. I certainly buy the possibility that some of his former buddies tried to pin the murder on him.

But the real important question, is should we be betting on someone's life in the first place?

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