Posted on 12/04/2005 9:51:03 AM PST by doug from upland
Candlelight Vigil Today for Williams
LOS ANGELES - Activists seeking clemency for convicted killer and Crips gang co-founder Stanley "Tookie" Williams will hold a candlelight vigil today in front of the restaurant founded by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger has scheduled a private clemency hearing Thursday with Williams' lawyers and prosecutors. The rally will be held at Schatzi on Main in Santa Monica, according to Danielle Heck of the Save Tookie Committee-LA.
Schwarzenegger no longer owns the restaurant.
Yesterday, a rally was held in Leimert Park to urge Schwarzenegger to grant clemency to Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13.
In addition to seeking clemency for Williams, participants expressed opposition to the death penalty in general, Heck said. Two other executions are scheduled in California in coming months.
Williams was convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 for four Southland murders.
His supporters believe Williams, who has maintained his innocence and hopes to become the first California condemned murderer to be granted clemency since 1967, has redeemed himself in prison through his work encouraging young people to stay out of gangs.
They also contend Williams, who is black, was convicted by a jury without any black jurors on circumstantial evidence and questionable testimony by jailhouse informants.
Prosecutors say Williams never accepted responsibility for the murders of Albert Owens, a Whittier 7-Eleven employee, and the shotgun murders of Thsai- Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Yee Chen Lin at a South Vermont Avenue motel less than two weeks later.
In a 50-page response to Williams' petition for executive clemency, Los Angeles County prosecutors wrote that "this cold-blooded killer, Stanley Williams, now seeks mercy, the very mercy he so callously denied" the four murder victims.
Included in the response were letters from law enforcement officials and two family members of one of his victims, all urging Schwarzenegger to let the execution proceed.
Williams, now 51, was 16 when he and a high school friend, Raymond Washington, began the Crips in South Los Angeles in 1971.
Known as "Big Took" to fellow Crips, Williams helped build the gang into a nationwide criminal enterprise that continues to spawn street violence more than 30 years later.
Since being condemned to death, Williams has renounced his gang past, penned children's books, been the subject of a cable TV movie called "Redemption" starring Jamie Foxx and was nominated in 2000 for a Nobel Peace Prize by Swiss Parliament member Mario Fehr for work he has done to curtail youth violence from his 9-foot-by-4-foot cell on San Quentin's death row.
Calls for clemency have been mounting from religious and community leaders and celebrities such as Foxx, the rapper Snoop Dogg, actor Mike Farrell and activist Bianca Jagger
I think the t-shirts should say THE JOURNEY ON THE GURNEY.
Williams' supporters, with help of the media (who could check the facts), continue to perpetuate this myth.
Juror #12, William James McLurkin, was a Black man. His death certificate lists his race as Black. Juror #1, Larry Sabala, has provided a sworn affidavit which confirms that one of the jurors was Black. According to Mr. Sabala, “one of the jurors who served with me was a Black man. It was obvious to everyone that he was a Black man.”
The most bizarre part of the lie about McLurkin's presence on the jury has been the statement of Williams' attorney (and I wish I could find the exact quote), saying that McLurkin was light-skinned and looked like a Filipino and therefore didn't count as a Black man.
It is true and (and in most cases) shameful that there is a history and a present practice of prosecutors using discretionary strikes to try to remove all Black jurors from juries where Black defendants are on trial, or where the death penalty is being sought (there are other theories where women or people with certain occupations, like social workers, are also struck from juries).
However, when did "a jury of your peers" mean not only a bundle of jurors of the race of your choosing, but in the case of Blacks, a degree of Blackness of skin tone as well? Am I entitled to a jury of stocky white guys who are bald and hairy-backed?
And he and his accomplices murdered what four people for which he was convicted for about Two Hundred, fifty dollars in cash. Is that four lives are worth $250. Why are all these people authoring articles saying the evidence was circumstancial? I mean they had gun evidence and even hand written notes authored by the Mr. Wms himself admitting as such.
If Arnold S. grants clemency, he can forget getting reelected.
The written notes, verified by handwriting experts, were his notes written in jail about his plan for escape. It included murdering two guards and blowing up a bus.
By the way, one expects ol' Ed Asner to show up at these rallies. Is he still with us?
I don't know what Farrell does these days. Yes, Assner is still with us.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Candlelight Vigil Today for Williams
-----I would attend one for the victims. Any movie stars having one for them?
***The flame from the candles are a nice touch for Tookie. I hear it gets mighty hot in the depths of hell where he will be for eternity.
Well, we did to get John and Ken to hold one.
Good post DFU. Has anyone here posited the theory that a reason for wealthy blacks to come forward to ask for clemency, in the face of the obvious evidence Tookie is guilty of multiple murder, is that they were threatened by Crips?
Crips will kill for kicks, so a threat from them is quite credible.
Were Snoop Dog and Jamie Fox threatened with violence by Tookies homies?
If so, I'll give 'em a pass on grounds of street survival, but the limo-liberals like Mike Farrel have no excuse.
I doubt that Snoop Dog**it or Foxx were threatened. They are just fighting against whitey.
Yep, that bears repeating-something that must be considered. The efn useless worthless media is not telling the whole story about "Tookie". Oh, they mention the celebrities and the children's books and Noble Prizes.
They don't mention that he has never admitted to killing the victims, or the brutal nature of his killings- they don't mention his violent history behind bars, of attacking other inmates, guards, and possibly continuing gang activity, and that he refused to cooperate with police - he didn't want to be a snitch on his gang members.
Most of the media don't even mention that "Tookie" committed any crime. They never mention why he is on death row. They don't mention that his appeals have been turned down- why they were turned down. They(media) are trying to stir up a riot.
I hope Arnold considers this case carefully.
Add Tim McVeigh to your tagline.
But he's a changed man and anti gang and peace activists. Yeah right.
and how many crimes did he commit that weren't solved or charged by prosecutors before the murders? That's what I would really like to know.
Where's Whorealdo?
In Al Capone's vault.
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