BURN that POS!!!
Posted on 10/11/2005 4:29:14 PM PDT by calcowgirl
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to take the case of California death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang whose later work for peace won him Nobel Peace Prize nominations.
Williams, who has been praised for his children's books and efforts to curtail youth gang violence, likely will be executed in December if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not grant clemency. The 51-year-old former gang member claims Los Angeles County prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors.
Williams, who claims he is innocent, is in line to be one of three California condemned inmates to be executed within months. He was condemned for killing four people in 1981 and claims jailhouse informants fabricated testimony that he confessed to the murders.
"We feel very strongly that this is an appropriate case for clemency because of what Stan has accomplished," said Andrea Asaro, one of Williams' attorneys.
While in San Quentin State Prison, Williams has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Prize for literature for his series of children's books and international peace efforts intended to curtail youth gang violence. His case reached the justices following a February decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court, as did the Supreme Court, refused to grant Williams another hearing based on his argument that prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors from hearing the case.
The San Francisco appellate court had suggested he was a good candidate for clemency. The judges cited the children's books he has written from prison, in addition to messages of peace he posts on the Internet.
The California Criminal Justice Legal Foundation is urging against clemency, and no California governor has granted clemency to a condemned murderer since Ronald Reagan spared the life of a severely brain-damaged killer in 1967.
"Perhaps now he will finally get the punishment that a jury unanimously agreed he deserved," said the group's president, Michael Rushford.
Schwarzenegger has rejected clemency for the first two condemned men asking to commute their sentences to life without parole. In Schwarzenegger's latest rejection in January, he said an inmate's model behavior in prison was not enough to sway him to grant mercy. That inmate, Donald Beardslee, was executed days later.
Williams and a high school buddy, Raymond Washington, started the Crips street gang in Los Angeles in 1971.
Williams was sentenced to death in 1981 for fatally shooting Albert Owens, a Whittier convenience store worker. He also was convicted of using a shotgun a few days later to kill two Los Angeles motel owners and their daughter during a robbery.
Last year, "Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story" aired on television, prompting thousands of e-mail messages to Williams from young gang members who said his life story helped them turn their lives around.
"Today is a shameful day in the history of American jurisprudence," said Barbara Becnel, a Williams confidant who edited Williams' nine children's books. "Today the U.S. Supreme Court has said in its ruling essentially that it is OK for a white prosecutor to kick all of the African Americans off of a jury."
The justices, meanwhile, on Tuesday also set aside legal challenges from California condemned inmate Michael Morales, now 45, who raped and killed a 17-year-old Lodi girl whose body as found beaten and stabbed in a nearby vineyard 24 years ago. Authorities are seeking a February execution for Morales.
Among other things, Morales challenged a jury's finding that the murder was committed while torturing the victim - which was the basis for the death sentence.
Last week, the justices also paved the way for the execution of Clarence Allen, a leader of a Fresno crime ring who ordered three killings from Folsom State Prison where he already was serving time for murder. Prosecutors are seeking a January execution for Allen.
The cases are Williams v. Brown, 04-10500; Morales v. Brown, 05-23; Allen v. Brown, 04-10556.
Maybe he can take cop killer Mumia with him when he goes.
BURN that POS!!!
I am ambivalent about executing him, but I think it is the appropriate action. Life is sometimes messy, and the best path is seldom the easy one...
LOL
Black online buddy from Philly told me that if I wore my "Fry Mumia" t-shirt there, I could drive as fast as I wanted, and get off with no more than a warning. He agrees with the sentiment, by the way.
http://www.thoseshirts.com/images/shirtsquare-mumia.jpg
Bush Sends Commendation Letter to Gang Leader on Death Row
President Bush has sent a letter, accompanying an award, to the founder of the Crips gang who is on Death Row in California.
The letter praises death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America." ___________________________________________________________
I understand sometime after the letter and award was sent, the White House was trying to figure out who Tookie was, and what they should do now....
OHHHHH!!!
He founded the Crips.
This is not a debate. Therefore, he is the founder of a domestic terrorist organization.
I'm pretty sure he's guilty too. There's other evidence out there.
I'm not even sure there's that. He claims inadequate defense and prosecutorial misconduct, but never actual innocence that I can see.
Whole lotta good "redemption" did Carla Faye Tucker.
Self-edit: That should have been in quotes, being a snip directly from the website.
Oh and don't forget about David Westerfield too!!!
(sarcasm also off now)
1. If the Ninth Circus Court failed to overturn the conviction of a black man convicted by an all-white jury, it must be pretty solid. That's the most liberal court in the country.
2. "The present adversarial system of justice would have to be scrapped in favor of an inquisitorial system in which the common incentive for all parties involved would be to arrive at the truth and facts of the matter."
With yourself as Grand High Inquisitor, I suppose?
Will you please reread and think carefully about that statement?
Hey, it ain't perfect, but our system of justice is still the best in the world. As Ben Franklin said, "It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent man be condemned." It is the adversarial system that ensures that the rights of the accused are protected.
When the defense attorney tries every dirty trick in the book to get their client off, goes after the credibility of the witnesses and the cops, questions the evidence, the testimony, everything- and the jury still convicts- that's when the system works.
This being said, we have to make sure defense counsel is competent, and that prosecutors follow the rules. When these do not occur, there is room for error.
Juice him.... Juice him good!
"While in San Quentin State Prison, Williams has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Prize for literature"
The Nobel prize has all the credibility of an Al Sharpton endorsement anymore.
Good one!
Just what do you expect a killers lifestyle in prison to be? No prisoner should have TV at my expense. This guy is a killer and should have been dead long ago. The fact that he is still alive means he is living better than he deserves. Death to all murderers, the sooner the better.
If you're gonna hang the guy hang him for something you can prove. Four jailbirds testifying to something doesn't prove anything other than that some police official got four jailbirds to say something.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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