Posted on 12/12/2005 12:58:46 PM PST by Born Conservative
SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution early Tuesday in a case that stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row. Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison after midnight for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.
Hollywood stars and death penalty opponents mounted a campaign to save his life, making him one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres in decades. His supporters argued that the founder of the murderous Crips gang had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and children's books about the dangers of gangs.
Prosecutors and victims' advocates contended Williams was undeserving of clemency from the governor because he did not own up to his crimes and refused to inform on fellow gang members. They also argued that the Crips gang that Williams co-founded in Los Angeles in 1971 is responsible for hundreds of deaths, many of them in battles with the rival Bloods for turf and control of the drug trade.
Williams stands to become the 12th California condemned inmate executed since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977 after a brief hiatus.
Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery weeks later. Williams claimed he was innocent.
The last time a California governor granted clemency was in 1967, when Ronald Reagan spared a mentally infirm killer.Schwarzenegger _ a Republican who has come under fire from members of his own party as too accommodating to liberals _ rejected clemency twice before during his two years in office.
Less than 12 hours before the execution was set to take place, the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals said it would not intervene because, among other things, there was no "clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence."
In his last-ditch appeal, Williams claimed that he should have been allowed to argue at his trial that someone else killed one of the four victims, and that shoddy forensics connected him to the other killings.
Williams was convicted of killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at a Los Angeles motel the family owned, and Albert Owens, 26, a 7-Eleven clerk gunned down in Whittier.
Among the celebrities who took up Williams' cause were Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; Sister Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in "Dead Man Walking"; Bianca Jagger; and former "M A S H" star Mike Farrell. During Williams' 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
"If Stanley Williams does not merit clemency," defense attorney Peter Fleming Jr. asked, "what meaning does clemency retain in this state?"
The impending execution resulted in feverish preparations over the weekend by those on both sides of the debate, with the California Highway Patrol planning to tighten security outside the prison, where hundreds of protesters were expected.
A group of about three dozen death penalty protesters were joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as they marched across the Golden Gate Bridge after dawn Monday en route to the gates of San Quentin, where they were expected to rally with hundreds of people.
At least publicly, the person apparently least occupied with his fate seemed to be Williams himself.
"Me fearing what I'm facing, what possible good is it going to do for me? How is that going to benefit me?" Williams said in a recent interview. "If it's my time to be executed, what's all the ranting and raving going to do?"
I have a little bit of a different feeling. I hope his IV drip messes up and he has a painful death. And then he rots in hell.
That's just me though.
Wait!!! That isn't his son, that is him!
Look at the victims (same names as 'Tookies' victims), the date of offense. But it says 16 years. Something is screwy here.
Snoop doesn't really give a bleep about Williams. He and a bunch of the others are just issue-limpets, attaching themselves for their own reasons. In Snoop's case, he's trying to get some free publicity for his moribund career.
The last two paragraphs says it all.
Good. I think the recent appointment controversy and his desperate efforts to backpedal without actually doing anything have revealed that he realizes that kicking his party in the face may not improve his political standing.
Well, he has already lived 20-something years too many.
She hasn't started yet. She'll take the position in January. I wonder if she decides to resign...
Did you ever make a hot dog cooker when you were younger?
Drive two nails in a board, bend them facing each other. connect wire to the nails.
Place a hot dog on the nails, one in each end and plug the wires into a wall outlet.
Stick a probe in Tookie's mouth , the other probe you know where and plug it in.
Ahh, the good ole days.
Quite a remarkable read, actually.
The tone of it rises and falls with indignation, exasperation, and most important, deep sadness.
I don't know what I expected to read. But the case against him is overwhelming. And what appears to be the wholly separate case against clemency is equally compelling, even if it is couched in this dramatic tone.
Fry Tookie.. Fry!
**Of course, I've never had a loved one murdered**
I have. That was when I changed my position from being against the death penalty to being for the death penalty. Lorraine will be forever on my mind and in my heart. This guy will get what he deserves. My best friend's murderer/rapist didn't.
Nowhere really. The Bloods is the result of a bunch of smaller gangs forming an alliance because they were tired of getting their butts beat by the Crips.
So you have researched the case and know he's guilty? Pray you are right or you are a murderer too
No electric chair. CA used to use a gas chamber.
Thank you Arnold - your political career can continue a little while longer. If anyone needed to be terminated it was "Tookie." As Tony Montana in Scarface would say Tookie got his first class ticket to the resurrection, have a good trip Tookie.
Let us all pray this execution is carried out and count the hours until this waste of a person is eliminated from this earth. While the state is at it how about strapping in most of the celebrities and activists that support him - it would be no loss to our society if they disappeared too. Let the riots begin.
One thing just hit me: Getting caught and put on death row probably extended his life by over 20 years. His Crip-founding partner died in the 70s. Count your blessings, Tookie.
I think many of his future decisions will be along these lines, as after today, his hollywood film career is over.
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