Gang founder's death row drama gains star support

Associated Press ^ | 11/26/05 | LYNN ELBER

[Pikamax]

Gang founder's death row drama gains star support

LYNN ELBER

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Jamie Foxx stepped into the spotlight at his latest movie premiere with more than the usual publicity drill in mind.

Don't let it happen, the actor urged - don't let the state of California execute Stanley Tookie Williams, the convicted murderer and Crips gang co-founder who's been recast behind bars in the role of peacemaker.

Foxx is not alone. An unusually varied collection of Hollywood stars and other famous names is trying to persuade Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that Williams - who has become a celebrity in his own right - can do more for society alive than dead.

Williams' supporters range from the holy (Archbishop Desmond Tutu) to the streetwise (rapper Snoop Dogg, himself once a Crip).

Whether a movie star governor is more inclined to consider their pleas for clemency is debatable. But the chorus is only growing louder as Williams' Dec. 13 execution by lethal injection approaches.

His supporters cite Williams' efforts to curb youth gang violence, including nine children's books and an online project linking teenagers in America and abroad. A Swiss legislator, college professors and others repeatedly have submitted his name for Nobel peace and literature prizes.

Last weekend, Snoop Dogg told about 1,000 people rallying outside San Quentin State Prison that Williams' activism has touched him.

"His voice needs to be heard," said the musician, whose new song, "Real Soon," touts Williams' anti-gang efforts.

On Monday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bianca Jagger, a death penalty opponent and former wife of rocker Mick Jagger, visited San Quentin. Jackson said he prayed with Williams, promising, "We are going to fight for you and we are going to win."

Foxx, who played Williams in "Redemption," a 2004 movie which brought the death row inmate's story to a wider audience, used the New York premiere of "Jarhead" to issue his plea.

In a jailhouse interview last week, Williams said he is unimpressed by his prominent supporters ("I'm blase about everything") and relies on his attorneys to evaluate the benefit of efforts on his behalf.

Hollywood's political and social activism has been known to provoke criticism. But Williams said he is unconcerned his famous boosters could create a backlash that might sway Schwarzenegger against him.

"In the position I'm in, I don't see how anybody can hurt," he said. "The truth is the truth no matter where it comes from."

Williams, 51, who saw the notorious gang he co-founded with a childhood friend spawn copycats worldwide, denies committing the 1979 murders that put him on death row. He was convicted of killing a convenience store worker and, days later, killing two motel owners and their daughter during a robbery.

The crimes Williams was accused of were "heinous," said former "M-A-S-H" star Mike Farrell, a longtime death penalty opponent. But Williams has made "an extraordinary transformation," said Farrell, who's lobbied for him for several years.

In apparent recognition of the power of the pro-Williams movement, the state Department of Corrections launched an unusual counterattack questioning the sincerity of his anti-gang conversion and alleging he remains involved with the Crips.

Lora Owens, stepmother of victim Albert Owens, opposes clemency and resents the celebrity involvement.

"I think most of them are abusing their popularity and their access to the media," she said. "It's an agenda. If they looked at the facts, then they'd realize Williams has not done anything to deserve clemency."

Williams' link to the entertainment world was cemented with the biographical movie shown on TV and at film festivals, including Robert Redford's Sundance. Several of those involved in "Redemption," including Foxx and co-star Lynn Whitfield, have become backers.

"If Stan Tookie Williams had been born in Connecticut in the same type of situation, and was a white man, he would have been running a company," Foxx told the AP when the film aired last year on FX. "But, born a black man who has the capability of having brute strength and the capability of being smart in the ways of the world, he's going to get into what he gets into."

Williams' support is particularly deep among blacks but extends much further, said Farrell. Working with Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Farrell gathered signatures from more than 100 religious leaders, lawmakers and others of prominence for a clemency request that went to the governor Monday. Among those whose names are attached: NAACP Chairman Julian Bond; U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Harry Belafonte; Bonnie Raitt and Russell Crowe.

Is there reason to think that Schwarzenegger's Hollywood ties might make him more receptive to celebrity pleas?

"No," Farrell said flatly. "One would hope that because he comes out of an industry beyond the political world that he's less subject to the pressures of politics but, unfortunately, his career hasn't demonstrated that."

So far, Schwarzenegger hasn't said much about the execution, other than that he views it as a complex subject.

"It's never a fun thing to do. You're dealing with someone's life," he told reporters.

Williams' lawyers have requested a meeting with Schwarzenegger but haven't gotten a commitment.

The famous have long rallied to high-profile prisoners, including American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing two FBI agents, and Jack Henry Abbott, whose jailhouse letters to novelist Norman Mailer were published as "In the Belly of the Beast." Abbott's release, which Mailer supported largely because of the convict's writing talent, ended tragically when he fatally stabbed a young man six weeks after being released. Back in prison, Abbott committed suicide.

Such celebrity campaigns rankle victim advocates. Nancy Ruhe, executive director of the National Organization of Parents of Murdered Children, argues that they glamorize a man like Williams and confer unwarranted role-model status.

"He becomes someone to look up to," Ruhe said. "There are so many people in our country you can look up to, but most certainly it should not be someone who has murdered several people."

If Schwarzenegger commutes Williams' sentence to life imprisonment, it would be the first time a California governor has done so since 1967. That's when Ronald Reagan - the last actor-turned-politico to govern California - spared the life of Calvin Thomas, a 27-year-old man convicted in a firebombing that killed his girlfriend's toddler son. His lawyers argued that Thomas was brain-damaged.

Comparing Schwarzenegger and Reagan, veteran political reporter and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon sees a key difference: The future U.S. president had quickly made the transition from actor to leader, while Schwarzenegger, as Cannon sees it, still is struggling with the metamorphosis.

"I don't think he's going to be dismissive of these (stars), because they're from his community, but ultimately that's not going to make his decision," said Cannon. "He'll decide it on the merits."

Whitfield, who came to know Williams while preparing to film "Redemption," said those merits are self-evident.

"I don't think of myself as speaking as a celebrity. I come with the advantage of having delved into his story," she said. "No one has said, 'Can you just open up the gates and let Stan be a free man in the world.' ... But he at least can continue to do the work he's doing."

[OldEagle]

Whether he can do more alive than dead is a given. First, no make that finally, he has to pay the piper.

[sofaman]

Apparently this has become a racial issue as well as a death penalty issue. Guilt or innocence be damned.

This man shouldn't be executed because he is Black? He shouldn't be executed because he has done "good work" since he killed 4 people in cold blood?

He is a founder of the Crips. How many innocent people have been killed by the Crips and by the gangs that his creation spawned?

Maybe it's just me but it seems to me that the rationale behind the protests is upside down. I haven't heard one word from the Belafonte's and Jackson's about the victims.

As a parting shot, I don't remember Mike Farrellhaving much to say when Daniel Pearl was beheaded.

[RedStateRocker]

"There are NO perps in CA, only VICTIMS responding involuntarily to society's inequities, on other VICTIMS"

Unless you happen to be a business owner providing employment and/or taxes revenue, then you are automatically an exploiter and only kept out of jail as a cash cow to be milked

[Prime Choice]

Yes. Breathtaking in its utter stupidity.

Anyone who claims that minorities are being somehow "held back" or "held down" because of their race is a chump. Just take a good look at the Asian community and tell me how they've been harmed by racism.

If anyone's holding down blacks, it's the black community itself. It's the crabs-in-a-bucket syndrome: one starts to climb out and the rest grab ahold of him and drag him right back down to their depths.

[hosepipe]

Jamie Foxx is becoming a stink in the nose..
The boy is RIPE... That Academy Award was Affirmative Racial Cowardice..

[sofaman]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

It is my contention that the argument is not about this person's innocence. It is accepted that he is guilty. The argument is about the death penalty.

As far as I am concerned there is no reason to commute this guy's sentence. He killed 4 people in cold blood. The very least he could do is show remorse. And part of that remorse would be an acknowledgement of what he did and an apology to the families of the victims. The fact that he has not admitted to his crimes, nor issued an apology, is very telling to me.

[Prime Choice]

I have no idea what you're I'm talking about.

There. Fixed it.

[sofaman]

Oh and btw, if you think that the anti-death penalty folks will not be at the prison protesting when Scott Peterson is days away from being offed, IMHO, you are mistaken.

Jesse Jackson won't be there..because to him this has nothing to do with justice. It has to do with race. He wants everyone to be treated equally, until they are.

[RedStateRocker]

I all respect I think the real debate is that it is NOT a given. Putting aside the racialist part of it there is an interesting question underlying can a truly repentant man do more good for society as something else than a corpse?
I honestly think it a valid philosophical question, completely aside form the guy getting the needle. Would some 'straight talk' from turn even one more punk away from the path than just offing him as ans example would?

I am not wise enough to know; and don't really care if he lives. If there are riots then the ONLY appropriate response is, and always has been - one rioter one bullet.

[phil1750]

I am not in favor of the death penalty, I am in favor of locking up murderers and child molesters in a 5 X 7 wire cage and wielding it shut. Until this type of true punishment is handed out, I will keep my mouth shut about the death penalty.

[sofaman]

He's not at all a pariah in Hollywood at the moment, imho. "Hollywood" may disagree with him on many issues, but he is far enougfh to the left of Pres Bush, that Hollywood would forgive and forget.

Based on this issue, there would be people in Hollywood that would refuse to work with him.

[BruceysMom]

I don't agree that the death sentence is about vengeance, or making him an example, it's about protecting the rest of society from him. They, his supporters, say they don't want him turned loose, yet if they commute his sentence how long til the let demands his freedom?

[sofaman]

"I have no idea what you're I'm talking about. There. Fixed it."

That's so clever!!!! Very impressive.

We're on the same side of this issue, Einstein. We both think that he should be executed.

[Prime Choice]

Ah. I must have misread you somehow. My apologies.

I must have taken my double-dose of stupid pills today. Sorry, sofaman. I got you all wrong.   :o(

[Smogger]

Noit that I would lose any sleep if every Crip and Blood disappeared into the Night and Fog.

Kant's rational for the death penalty is the most convincing I think: If you murder someone there is really no punishment that the state can extract that is equal to the crime that you have committed aside from death. The arguments about deterrent, or vengance, etc I find extremely weak.

I oppose the death penalty on purely religious grounds, but I won't lose much sleep if Tookie is executed.

[sofaman]

No problem...maybe I didn't make myself clear.

It just struck me that no-one is question this guy's guilt. So it boils down to a death penalty argument. And I am ardently pro-death penalty.

I don't care whether the guy is pink, blue, yellow or green. He killed 4 people in cold blood and has shown no remorse, in my view. Based on that, there is no reason to commute his sentence.

If there was an argument about his innocence, I'd be more inclined to re-look at the case.

[Ninian Dryhope]

Frying this murdering thug also sends an anti-gang message to the youths.

[Ninian Dryhope]

"Jackson said he prayed with Williams, promising, "We are going to fight for you and we are going to win."

Another Jackson lie.

[Seamoth]

Amen. If he were repentant, he would be begging for punishment for his atrocities.

[Lancey Howard]

Stanley "Tookie" Williams, at age 29

(From Wikipedia)

"Stanley "Tookie" Williams (born December 29, 1953) was the founder, along with Raymond Washington, of the Crips, one of the most widely-known and notorious street gangs."

"He grew up in impoverished South Central Los Angeles where he made a name for himself for being a fighter and a "general" on the streets of the West Side of South Central. He was also known for his bodybuilding, which according to Williams, once earned the praise of Arnold Schwarzenegger himself when the two met in the late 1970s."