Can we get this Tookie Williams thing over with?
Calif. High Court Refuses Williams’ Stay
By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 47 minutes ago
The California Supreme Court late Sunday refused to grant a stay of execution for convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, meaning the former gang leader who became an outspoken critic of gang violence will be executed early Tuesday unless the governor grants clemency or a last-ditch federal appeal succeeds.
Williams’ supporters also made another pitch directly to the governor Sunday to spare his life, telling Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a letter that they had a new witness who could help prove Williams’ innocence.
“All we need now is time to investigate to make sure this story is real,” said NAACP California President Alice Huffman. “We’re hoping and praying for clemency, but we’re not going to leave any stone unturned.”
Schwarzenegger said last week that he was agonizing over Williams’ request for clemency.
Prosecutors and family members of the victims have urged him to deny the request, in part because Williams continues to deny guilt in the slayings. No clemency request has been granted in California since 1967, when Ronald Reagan spared a mentally ill killer.
Following the state Supreme Court ruling, lawyers for Williams immediately asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals here to block his looming execution. A decision was expected Monday.
Williams’ supporters, an outspoken group ranging from community leaders to actors and rappers, have held rallies in his support and argue that executing Williams would send the wrong message.
They say he has redeemed himself by speaking out against violence and writing children’s books on the evils of gang life. During his 24 years at San Quentin, the Crips street gang founder turned his life around to the point that a Swiss legislator, college professors and others repeatedly submitted his name for Nobel peace and literature prizes.
Williams, 51, was condemned for the slaying of a man during a robbery in February 1979 and the deaths of a couple and their daughter at a South Los Angeles motel the following month.
He denies committing the murders but has apologized for founding the Crips, a gang prosecutors blamed for thousands of murders in Los Angeles and beyond.
Williams is scheduled for lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. He would be the 12th inmate executed by the state since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
The state Supreme Court ruled 6-0 against staying his execution, saying Williams’ last-minute appeal lacked merit and was untimely. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Brault had implored the justices early Sunday to dismiss the petition, writing that it “is without merit and is manifestly designed for delay.”
The justices earlier had denied a defense request to reopen the case over allegations that shoddy forensics linked a weapon used in three of the murders to a shotgun registered to Williams.
In the defense request for a stay of execution, attorney Verna Wefald had argued that Los Angeles County prosecutors failed to disclose at trial that witness Alfred Coward was not a U.S. citizen and that he had a violent criminal history. Coward is now in prison in Canada for the murder of 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.
The California Supreme Court, a federal district court judge in Los Angeles, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
I always try to resist writing blogs about political or real news items because most of my stuff is so light hearted. But this is a story that keeps popping up in the news out here in California and it is getting to the point that it is annoying the piss out of me. First of all let me say that I am a registered democrat and consider myself rather liberal on a lot of social issues. This however is not one of them.
I agree that his case might be slightly flimsy because of the quality of witnesses that testified and I believe that if you are putting someone to death the case should be ironclad. I know he has renounced gang violence, and has written children’s books… He even has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He denies these murders up and down.
Has anyone asked him if he has killed anyone ever? I mean seriously he was the leader of the freaking crips… You don’t rise to power without wiping out a few rivals along the way, or even ordering to have people killed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Yes I understand that it needs to be proven in a court of law but at this point he is convicted, should the government really work that hard at this point to turn it over? I’m not saying they should impede justice but well…
He founded the crips… The crips… How many hundreds of thousands of people have they killed, how many drugs have they sold, how many guns have they sold? It’s not like he founded some community action group, it is a fucking gang. I love the fact that people will throw around the fact that he apologized for doing it, and renounced it. So I guess like if Hitler said he was sorry for bringing the Nazi party to power we should accept it and move on?
“Well he said he was sorry!”
“Aw… ok… it’s ok man… it’s just a few million people.”
I know the sound of that is utterly ridiculous. So why is it any different for a few hundred thousand people?
But he wrote children’s books…. Madonna is writing children’s books too but I haven’t forgiven her for her “contributions” to pop culture. This to me is the most insulting part of his whole case for clemency. Like the fact that he wrote a series of children’s books makes everything all better. I can’t imagine that this would be any consolation to anyone that was effected by this man’s actions.
“Sorry ma’am we are truly saddened by the death of your son, and we know it has pretty much ruined your life and the life of your families. But well this guy wrote a series of children’s books.”
For some reason that doesn’t fly with me, go ahead and make the well it might set an example to keep kids out of gangs theory. Guess what.. You think when they are 16 they are going to go back and think about a book they read when they were little? Probably not, you know when you want the protection and the feeling of inclusion a gang offers a children’s book isn’t going to prevent you from joining.
Maybe at some point we need to look at the real causes:
-poverty
-shitty parenting
-poverty
