Start with this, and move on to other parts.
Posted on 12/11/2005 12:26:59 PM PST by doug from upland
CBSNEWS.COM Los Angeles Dec. 11, 2005
(AP) A lawyer for convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams asked the state Supreme Court to stay his execution, saying the Crips gang co-founder should have been allowed to argue that someone else killed one of his four alleged victims.
Attorney Verna Wefald filed a petition Saturday challenging the validity of the four convictions and death sentences given in 1981 to Williams, who is scheduled to die Tuesday at San Quentin State Prison. She also filed an emergency request seeking a stay, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Williams' lawyers also have asked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency, saying Williams has redeemed himself as shown by his books urging children not to join gangs. Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday the governor had not made a decision.
Williams was convicted of killing a man during a robbery in February 1979 and of murdering a couple and their daughter at a South Los Angeles motel in March 1979.
Williams denies committing the murders but has apologized for co-founding the Crips, the gang blamed for numerous murders in Los Angeles and beyond.
From behind bars, Williams has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to quell gang violence and four times for a Nobel Prize in literature.
In August, Williams received a President's Call to Service Award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising him for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America."
The money from the sale of his books is used to support at-risk youth programs and to continue his appeals, his lawyers said.
Wefald's petition argues that prosecutors failed to disclose at trial that witness Alfred Coward was not a U.S. citizen and had a violent criminal history, depriving Williams of the opportunity to argue Coward was the killer in the February 1979 robbery.
Coward is now in prison in Canada for killing a man during a robbery.
"All of the witnesses who implicated Williams were criminals who were given significant incentives to testify against him and ongoing benefits for their testimony," Wefald wrote.
"This type of testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in murder and capital cases in the United States," she wrote, citing a study from Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions.
Wefald declined to comment Saturday night.
The California Supreme Court, a federal court judge in Los Angeles, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court have all upheld Williams' convictions
I know very little about the process. Someone said that Arnold didn't have to make an announcement and just run down the clock. If there is no clemency, why make a statement?
Start with this, and move on to other parts.
I asked because I wondered if anybody on here knew for sure, because I have read that the first one only sold 333 copies and the second one, about two.
"nominated . . . four times for a Nobel Prize in literature."
I haven't run across "Tookie's" Nobel laureate candidate writings. Can any FReeper out there tell us of the quality of his literary output that places him in such a celebrated circle of writers?
Of course not. I can not figure out why the governor would delay this. He knows damn well if he grants this guy clemency, what is left of his political career goes up in smoke, and he would always be known as the guy that granted a lying, high profile, murdering gang member clemency.
Wont happen-Schwarzenegger can't be this stupid.
Considering some past winners that bunch has chosen, Tookie may well be awarded one.
Well if that is the case, it raises a little question about why all these news stories from established MSM sources and "editors" are continually citing these "nominations" as if they were a significant fact.
I guess the answer is that for much of the MSM, news is what they want it to be....facts are not at all stubborn things.
I don't expect trouble. It really doesn't seem like anyone really cares. But then I don't live in South Central.
Uhm.. it was Morgan Fairchild.., yeah, that's it, that's the ticket, she killed him.
I think that the guy who gave the stats about the book sales only considered certain sources that reported officially. He admitted on the radio that there were more sold from other sources.
I'm not dismissing the possibility, but is there really any proof that his efforts have kept any kid from gang life that would not have already avoided it?
Thanks for the photo.
I like the ceramic tile floor. It makes urine cleanup simple so the place can be kept neat and hygenic.
You be won funny man!
"Any conjecture on why the extended delay?"
Arnie is twisting the knife?
Only the Moderator knows. No doubt it would have ballooned the thread threefold though had it been allowed to remain.
That woman who co-wrote the books with Tookie says that she "edits" his writing. But, from his interviews, you can tell he is semi-literate and would not be able even to write a children's book. Words are used incorrectly and his syntax is fractured.
Aw shucks, thanks.
So that it doesn't get announced on a weekend.
See #117. Her name is Barbara Becal or something. She is a strident black rights advocate.
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