Will the Terminator Terminate Tookie?

SAN FRANCISCO(AP) 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.

 

I just hope that if this man is executed, which I think he deserves, the National Guard is deployed in sufficient numbers and with plenty of time to prevent the riots expected when he gets the needle. I just don't want to see South Central or East L.A. in flames again like it was during the Rodney King riots.

Have a good week Russell.

 

Gee, what's next, cutting off hands of thieves and cutting out the tongues of liars and cutting of the penises of adulterers and....

 

No. But compulsory castration for repeat sex offenders does not sound like a bad idea.

 

The best reason against granting clemency is the threat of riot if clemency is not granted.

Clemency is not a right, in any case.

I do not know enough about this case to have an opinion on whether overturning the justice system by governor's fiat is justifiable in this instance, but the notion that riot has the right to overturn the rule of law is execrable.

 

As thw father of two little girls i have to agree. But as far as the Ole' Tuk goes, he knew what he was doing when he did and has not ever said he was sorry for the murders. If the death penalty is legal, a rather sticky debate, than he is a picture perfect candidate. What does everyone really think the driving factor is here? Race, repentance or just general fear of rioting?

As for the death penalty, IMHO Murder is wrong no matter how you wrap it. Execution of criminals, shooting the liqour store clerk, or having an abortion, doesnt matter, at least to me. I personally think murder is wrong no matter how you wrap it and two wrongs, or in this case five, does not make it right....IMHO

 

Hi Miguel,

Sex offenses are not about sex, they're about power. Therefore, castration is basically non-effective.

 

I wonder...

This guy has apparently made good use of his time in the Big House...

The reason, he says, that he won't apologize for the murders is that he didn't do them.

I wonder...

The fear, of course, in commuting his sentence is that he will be released eventually. As long as he's alive, that's a possibility. And this guy isn't just the usual three by four crook who loses his head and shoots up a liquor store; he is, or perhaps WAS, a cold blooded, calculating killer and a major crime boss.

I've spent a LOT of time amongst murderers; they often deny guilt in the face of OVERWHELMING evidence. "Beyond a reasonable doubt", however, doesn't seem to always apply in murder trials, to judge from the results of recent DNA evidence.

I THINK, that if I were Schwartzenegger (a man I admire, BTW) that I would bite the bullet and commute the sentence to life without parole. I THINK I would. Here's why:

I don't really see what killing him will accomplish. The guy is either genuinely reformed (which I very much doubt) or he's a talented manipulator (which I think more likely.) Thing is, people are easily manipulated. If he's executed, a martyr will be created and that disgusts me. Better he should rot in jailed obscurity.

 

The guy is a bum..

I have said on here before that I do not support the death penalty for reasons which have nothing to do with its morality. However, I have yet to see one good reason put out by Tookie's lawyers for his salvation.

Jail house conversion? Not good enough and frankly his conversion does not appear to be genuine.

Innocence? Unlikely, not even his own lawyers are claiming he is innocent.

Good behaviour? He hasn't behaved well in jail.

Frankly, trumpeting Tookie as a reason for stopping the death penalty does more harm than good to the cause. I am for life w/o option for parole or clemency but not for any reason he or his lawyers have put forward....

 

Re: The guy is a bum..

Several points here:

1. Jailhouse conversions can be and many are real and genuine.

2. Innocent? Doubt it. No one can tell me the founder and leader of a major gang committed no murders.

3. Good behavior? What a joke! I hate the expression "Time off for good behavior." A prisoner should behave behind bars. He/she shouldn't be rewarded for doing what is expected!

4. Williams has not renounced his gang name nor has he asked his Crips' brethren to leave and renounce gang life.

Life without parole. No death penalty!

 

Actual innocence

Oddly, actual innocence is not generally a ground for post-conviction relief.

The DNA cases are an exception because the DNA evidence was not "reasonably available" at the time of trial and conviction. That's what we call "newly discovered evidence" and it WILL support a claim of actual innocence. But in general, a post conviction claim for relief based on actual innocence is not even heard by the Court. Instead, it is denied summarily.

Therefore, claims of actual innocence belong to the Governor rather than the Courts. So DTechBA is making a valid point; if Tookie's lawyers aren't claiming innocence before the Governor, that can only be becasue they don't believe it themselves.

So DTechBA's point is striking.

 

Re: Re: The guy is a bum..

I was not talking about conversion to Christianity. I was referring to his conversion to the belief that the gang life is bad. I think it is a self serving front. I should have been more clear....

 

It is a question of the punishment fitting the crime. Believe me, if anyone were to touch my daughter he would wish a court ordered castration over what I would do to him any day of the week.

 

I think that there's two issues here.

First there's the general question of the death penalty. Should anyone be put to death for their crimes? I support the death penalty. But that's not what I want to discuss in this post.

And second, there's the specific issue of Mr. Tookie.

My opinion is that if the death penalty exists, and if anyone deserves to receive it, Mr. Tookie is right up there.

He was a founder and leader of one of America's most violent criminal street gangs. A gang that was (and continues to be) involved in many hundreds of murders. And Mr. Tookie stands convicted of killing four people who accidently found themselves in his way, including a young convenience store clerk and an elderly couple.

He has never expressed any remorse for those crimes. He continues to deny them. But as he denies those crimes, he boasts that he used to be a "gang banger", essentially admitting that he shot at and presumably killed an unspecified number of people. But of course he cagily refuses to give up any of the names and places that might convict him.

He doesn't deny killing, he only denies that he murdered the people that he stands convicted (on the basis of overwhelming evidence) of killing.

Well, if Mr. Tookie has really reformed, then why doesn't he provide police with an annotated list of all of the serious crimes that he committed (or ordered others to commit) while he was leading the crips?

Don't hold your breath, this guy is a manipulator, not a saint.

I believe that Governor Schwarzenegger should deny clemency. Mr. Tookie needs to take his rehabilitation plea to a much higher court, if any such judge exists.

 

Re: Re: The guy is a bum..

This is what drives me totally nuts. People in jail acting like they are doing us a service because they are doing THEIR time. I am totally with you Jimmy...I don think the Governor can commute the sentance and keep the base in CA, BUT i dont think he can keep the moderates if he doesnt commute it to Life. Im against the death penalty so I say Life without chance in h&ll of getting out again

 

Time off for good behavior

We call it "earned meritorious deductions" or, more commonly "good time." Believe me, you want this thing to exist.

When someone is doing a nice long stretch in the jug, good time is about all he has to lose for disciplinary infractions.

Corrections Officers working in general population are never armed. Think about that. A CO's safety depends entirely on his own force of personality and the near absolute certainty that attacking him will result in loss of good time.

Although I have never been a uniformed CO, I HAVE been in prison situations where my own safety depended on the ame thing.

Prisoners who are in for life sentences often ARE especially dangerous; the only thing they have to lose is life itself and sometimes they don't care that much. We saw that during the New Mexico prison riots in 1980 (before my time).

So good time isn't there to reward prisoners so much as it is there to make the CO's job safer.

 

I would definatly be up for keeping the COs as safe as possible. it just seems that, and maybe its the presentation, that THEY are doing us a favor by being in jail. I have never been involved in the prison system so it hard for me to make a call, and it seems you have. BUT how do you base this for the real serious problems, the lifers? Do you seperate them from others? I think the judicial system itself needs a total rewrite and we could reclassify prisoners based on weather they are violent or not.

 

Clearly, we need to carry out death sentences far more expeditiously so that prisoners don't have enough time to come up with some big act about a "jailhouse conversion" argument.

 

Re: Time off for good behavior

Nope. Throw 'em in the klink for their entire time, no matter that some of 'em might become good little boys while at Iron Bars Hotel. As for the guards, arm them to the teeth!

 

Re: Actual innocence

And how do all you brilliant lawyers and jurists manage to get things so f***ed up that actual innocence is not a grounds for appeal?