for those that don't know Stanley "Tookie" Williams was a founder and former leader of the Crips. He was convicted of several murders in 1981 and has been on death row since. In his time in prison Tookie has renounced his life as a gangster and worked to make sure others don't folow his path. His efforts recieved enough attention to get him nominated for a Nobel peace prize several years ago. Here is an article from earlier this morning dealing with the possible clemency of Williams.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/26/BAGG3FUEJA1.DTLState Governor agrees to Williams hearing[/b]Convicted killer gets closer to possible clemencyCharles Burress, Chronicle Staff WriterSaturday, November 26, 2005Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided to hold a clemency hearing Dec. 8 for Stanley Tookie Williams, the condemned killer who has attracted a number of high-profile backers calling for his life to be spared. It is believed to be the first time a California governor has held such a hearing since 1992, when Gov. Pete Wilson considered the appeal of condemned killer Robert Alton Harris, Schwarzenegger's office said Friday. Wilson denied the appeal. No California governor has granted clemency since Ronald Reagan in 1967. "It's very positive, and we're very happy about that," said Williams' attorney, Verna Wefald of Pasadena. "We did ask for a personal meeting with the governor." The district attorney's office in Los Angeles County, which prosecuted Williams in the four 1979 killings for which he was convicted, strongly opposes clemency. State offices were closed Friday, and prosecutors could not be reached for comment. Williams, 51, was the co-founder of the Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles, but his defenders say he has become an anti-gang crusader behind bars. He is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Dec. 13. Several famous people have rallied in Williams' support, including Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Irene Kahn, who is secretary general of Amnesty International. Civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Bianca Jagger visited Williams at San Quentin State Prison on Monday. Schwarzenegger's press secretary, Margita Thompson, said the governor had decided to hold the hearing after receiving materials from all parties to the case. The governor's decision was contained in a terse three-sentence notice Friday to lawyers in the case. It said the private hearing in Schwarzenegger's office was "to be attended by counsel only." "The decision was made that this will afford the governor the opportunity to hear directly from counsel," Thompson said. "Clemency is purely an act of grace on the part of the governor," Wefald said. "There aren't any hard and fast rules." Williams was convicted of the shotgun murder of 7-Eleven clerk Albert Owens during a robbery in Whittier (Los Angeles County) in 1979, and of murdering the owners of a Los Angeles motel, Tsai-Shai Yang and Yen-I Yang, and their daughter, Ye Chen Lin, in a robbery two weeks later. In his two years as governor, Schwarzenegger has denied clemency in two previous cases, those of convicted murderers Kevin Cooper and Donald Beardslee. The governor denied clemency without a hearing to Cooper, whose execution has been put on hold by the courts to allow further examination of evidence that prosecutors used to convict him. Beardslee was executed in January. Because he had been twice convicted, his appeal was automatically referred to the state Board of Parole, which recommended against clemency, Thompson said.
Guzzo
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excellent question, heres another one:
why is thought of rehabilitating someone in prison one thats not actually put into practice?
and further when a prisoner does reform why do we not accept him back into society as anything but a criminal?
yeah, i'd say so.
have you thought about the people he killed vs. the potential lives he saved through his books, recordings and other efforts to a public that may only be willing to accept a message from a man who has lived the life Tookie has?
Co-sign
Not sayin' some don't deserve to die. Some most certainly do. I just don't trust The State??? do decide who stays and who goes. Too much room for error. 1 innocent person, wrongfully convicted, then being put to death is 1 too many. How many 1's you think there are in this country alone? The real bad guys usually get their come uppance anyways. Karma is a mufugga.
people like child murderers,child rapists should be tortured to within an inch of their lives,allowed to recover then tortured again till death.whatever you do to these people it will never make up for the pain they cause the families..
Well that's because in reality prison is solely about retribution and not rehabilitation, despite the stated high ideals of the justice system. Personally, I can't support the death penalty on any level.
This is true, and it seriously undermines any efforts and expense spent on probation and rehabilitation services, as it sends a message to crims that once you're caught and banged up you might as well kiss goodbye to any chance of leading a 'normal' life - ever. Ironic too that we're talking about America, where Christian values are touted left right and centre by Bush, but two of it's central values - namely redemption and forgiveness - are clearly not on the agenda when they get in the way of some good ole fashioned frontier justice.
Also, it's pretty churlish to blame the generations of subsequent gang violence on Tookie alone. There's many factors that contribute to the creation of the gang mentality - social depravation and self loathing are a couple that spring instantly to mind, and I'm sure there are plenty more. I suppose it's indicative of the times we live in when every social problem has to be attributed to some kind of folk devil rather than looking seriously at the underlying reasons behind their existence in the first place.
...is a lot of baloney. Do you suppose Tookie would have renounced anything if he hadn't been busted? The prisons of the world are full of people that have "renounced" their past in hopes of gaining their freedom. Renouncing that life before you kill a bunch of people is the tough move...
Life without parole.
...but think about all of the lives he helped destroy by starting a huge ass gang. Besides, if he is sincere, his message will ring a 1,000 times louder if he is executed. It will certainly show the dangers of being a gang member.
And in response to Days post about the kid killer. I think they should implement torture, fuck that dude, do to him what he did to that little girl. And show that shit on live TV and people will start thinking twice...
It won't, and it doesn't. If he is executed it will turn into a debate about the death penalty he will be immortalized as a martyr who tried to turn his life around not as a killer who made an easy choice behind walls. It is statistical fact that the death penalty is not a deterrent against violent crime.
I can see that happining as well.
yes, I have also thought about what that little girl could have grown up to be..
That would be a good point, if killing tookie had any chance of bringing her back to life.
or he could have just not killed her, and her parents, while robbing them.
I just can't feel pity for this guy.
But I'm glad my tax dollars gave him all this free time to become an award winning author. [/sarcasm]
If that was my daughter/niece/mother he murdered, I would be asking to be the one to flip the switch..
damn dude where did you come from ?
only 325 posts and making each one count.
an eye for an eye and everyone is blind, is what gandhi said.
to kill someone just to get back at them is probably sweet for the victims but just escalates the cycle of violence in our society.
plus it doesn't deter shit.
too many innocent people dying.
also i forget what percentage but a majority of the people on death row are black. as well a large majority have suffered brain damage in their life. as well i would be willing to bet that a huge majority, maybe 98 percent are poor people who didn't have attorneys for shit. too many bad things here to be pro death penalty. plus it's more expensive to kill someone than to keep them in prison for their whole lives.
The sad fact is that killing this dude basically confirms the notion that our justice system does not belive in rehabilition and is strictly about reciprocity and punishment. Here we have an example of a man that has shown a great deal of growth and "rehabilition" and the state is basically saying "so what?"
It's sad.
The death penalty is a terrible thing.
-e
I think most of us can agree that the death penalty is an archaic form of justice at best and should be rememebred only in history. I dont think Tookie should be executed. But to excuse him for his actions because he rehabilitated himself I think is short sighted. Its great that he has been able to make something of his life in prison, but that still does not erase what he did to get there.
I dont know the specifics of his case, but it seems it is pretty accepted by all that he is guilty of murder. Murder is simply inexcusable. There isn't a murder where one could say "its the fault of the enviorment." If Tookie had stolen a car or some checks then we could excuse him because it is obvious he was living in an enviorment that was not providing him with oppurtunites and intellectual stimulation. But a murder is something different. It makes a ripple in generations of families to come. It destroys whole neighborhoods and circles of friends and relations. And it breaks a social contract we all share with eachother. We must punish him and not let him be a member of society. His murders were premeditated and I think the responsability of a murder rests directly on the shoulders of the murderer.
true
You're reading too far into my post if you think I disagree with any of this. I am not excusing Tookie for his actions at all, simply saying that the justice system's insistence on killing this man proves they have no interest in rehabilitation whatsoever.
-e