Free Republic

The candles flickered outside the gates of San Quentin state prison Monday night as the minutes ticked down to midnight and the scheduled execution of Stanley Tookie Williams. More than 100 death penalty opponents stood or sat in the middle of the two-lane road leading to the prison gates, waving signs, shivering in the cold and trying to ignore a pair of Los Angeles shock jocks who were broadcasting live and screaming, "Kill Tookie,'' into their microphones. The protesters, a determined but relatively small band, were outnumbered by the army of reporters and photographers, some from Europe and Asia, who...