Well, ok. Let him have an emergency stay on this. We could call it a Tookie cutter.
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
Well, ok. Let him have an emergency stay on this. We could call it a Tookie cutter.
How many of his books has he sold?
I am far from being a bleeding heart. We all have 2 catagories in our lives bad and good. His bad catagory has really terrible things in it. He has done good with the last few years. No that does not equal clemency nor should it make up for the murders in any way. However I don't feel that you can dismiss the good this man has done either. They don't outwiegh or cancel each other out. It is possiblw to discuss the positives of this man understanding completely that he deserves to die for his murders. SHould that earn him clemency-NO. It should make us say what a waste of such potential that he has shown the last few years. Too little too late with too much water under the bridge.
Carla Fay Tucker.
Fry the Mo'fo'.
Oh Lord - the lid would blow off this state. LOL!
And what part of his anatomy do you suggest for the first cut?
If the governor grants clemency, work should begin immediately on his recall.
A single Nobel Peace Prize award is all you need to know about the committee and the award itself. Recall that Yasser Arafat, one of the 20th century's greatest terrorists, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
Yes, thanks, she was the one I was thinking of. Because she was a Christian, however, the glitterati weren't out there fighting for her. But on the other hand, she was very composed and knew that she had made her peace with God. I doubt that Tookie can say the same.
"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."
Un. Stinkin. Believeable.
GWB has to be the poorest judge of character I have ever seen. Praising and honoring a treasonist rapist is the icing on the cake.
A nitwit professor in San Francisco.
Somebody in one of those peace movements.
BTW, lots of people can SAY they nominate somebody for a Nobel Prize (see one of the doctors in the Schiavo case), but unless they sit on the Nobel panel it's not a valid nomination.
And in case anybody is wondering, the Nobel Committee does NOT publicize the nominees. They only announce the winners.
Ever.
Carla Faye Tucker. Completely legitimate. She understood that the way she had lived her life in prison was great but it did not make up for her crimes.
"...Your son is a sick, sadistic, cold blooded animal. You must be very proud." Frank Drebbin 'Naked Gun 33 1/3'
I like how this guy is portrayed as a victim. I love how the same bunch that calls are fighting men and women "Terrorists" are publicly defending Tookie. I love how Communists are defending this guy, who has made millions of dollars in profits retelling his story of how he's been victimized. I love how the left treats this guy who set up the CRIPS, an organization of new age mobsters. I love how the mental dunces at our nation's universities invite this guy to give speeches by phone (like he's going to say anything worth listening too) while the same people "boo" our president, our vice president, Ann Coulter and others who have done nothing wrong.
And I feel sorry for the families and survivors of his victims, to now watch as Tookie is elevated to martyr like status.
I thought I heard it too, cause I popped my neck whippin' to the TV when I heard it!
Why was that post remvoved by the moderator? Do we not let liberal nitwits post anymore? Or was there something obscene in the post that you omitted?
See #73, please.
Bush honored Clinton?
Right this way Mr. Tookie. We have your seat reserved for you.
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