California Governor Denies Clemency

Tookie Williams was denied clemency by California's governor:

Link to Article

I am against the death penalty for all the classical reasons. It is barbaric, out-of-step with the civilized world, fails to deter crime, is much more expensive to administer than life imprisonment, sometimes is applied to innocent people, is applied with complete unfairness as to race, etc. But I have to say, I agree with the Governor's decision, based upon the situation.

I don't know that the argument for clemency can be made for someone who has not accepted responsibility for the crime, or even admitted his guilt. I realize he maintains his innocence (of those crimes, anyway), but he's exhausted (or nearly so) his routes to overturn his conviction. He's left with the argument that he's reformed so much that his life is now worth sparing. Well, I think all lives are worth that (although I wonder sometimes about some people that have clearly turned in their membership card to the human race, as Dennis Miller once put it). But in the continuum of cases for clemency, I just don't see how this one outweighs others that are denied as well.

We, as a society, can choose not to purposely kill other humans. It would be more humane, less expensive, and just as effective in detering crime. Those that are a threat to other humans could be locked away forever--and for a lot less money than it takes when trying to execute them. If the Governor would follow his Illinois coutnerpart and grant clemency to them all (but removing any route to parole), we would be a higher and more moral society for it. But I just don't see how Tookie Williams can be picked out for special treatment when he hasn't even admitted the crimes for which he now seeks clemency.

These things soil us all.

 

we already have a tookie thread.

and we are talking about the filed clemency. Let us practice thread control

 

Another dark day for the civilized world.

 

How's this for thread control: This isn't a "political" discussion topic, so that thread's in the wrong place. It is a societal and government one, both of which are separate from politics.

I never post in, nor do I even read, that forum. The subject of the death penalty can be discussed thoroughly without even once bringing up politics.

 

Inherently political...

The question of death penalty as a matter of law and society makes it inherently political.

Partisan politics is only a small sordid part of politics. The vast majority of people's relations with their government is outside the realm of partisanship and as such politics is an extremely important part of all of our lives. We ignore politics at our own risk.....

 

The Governor's statement is worth reading. Go to www.ca.gov and follow the link to the Governor's page.

I doubt that Swarzenegger himself wrote it; it has "staff attorney" tracks all over it. However, it is clear, concise, and well reasoned. It fails, IMHO, in only one respect.

It says that there is nothing to justify clemency in the record. Maybe not; I personally think not, but the soul of clemency is that it doesn't REQUIRE legal justification. The Governor needn't give any reason for doing what he thinks is best.

 

There's the rub. I must share responsibility with the rest of the residents of California for this sorry person having his life terminated by the state.

 

At the risk of coming across as a contrarian, how in the world does one separate government from politics?

 

Re: Re: California Governor Denies Clemency

Thank you for making it crystal clear that those of us who oppose capital punishment in way condone what Williams did. We find him repulsive, evil, satanic, and, as you say, "sorry."

We just don't support state-sanctioned murder.

 

Re: Re: Re: California Governor Denies Clemency

Simply by definition, the death penalty isn't murder.

The death penalty is a form of socially sanctioned homicide. But then so is warfare.

Do you think that soldiers are committing murder when they engage in combat?

It seems to me that death penalty opponents, or at least those of them that use the 'murder' argument, would need to become complete and total pacifists if they hope to remain consistent.

 

Definition of Irony: The bleeding heart defending the death penalty while the hard core conservatives disagree with it.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: California Governor Denies Clemency

Self-defense is not murder. Soldiers who kill in self-defense do not commit murder.

Solders like William Calley do commit murder.

 

Wellll...technically...it isn't murder. Murder is the UNLAWFUL deliberate taking of a human life. An execution is "lawful".

Last time WE killed a murderer here in New Mexico, the first one since 1962, I think it was, no one here knew how to do it. We had to rent two executioners from (where else?) the State of Texas.

The citizenry was pretty upset about it. There is no death penalty in Mexico, hasn't been for a hundred years or so, and us New Mexicans had been hugging ourselves that we are too "civilized" to actually carry out a death sentence, whatever the law provided. For a quarter century we'd found SOME way in each case to avoid actually DOING it.

We were wrong. The shock was quite real.

We have a few candidates on Death Row even now but I'll be surprised if our Governor doesn't find some reason to commute their sentences. That's what happened to three others when this one, through a timing miscalcualtion by his attorneys, missed out on Governor Anaya's last minute commutations.

Don't get me wrong, he was a thoroughgoing piece of camel crap and if ANYONE deserved to die, it was THIS guy. He was actually worse than Tookie; he liked to rape and murder little girls. There was absolutely NO doubt as to his guilt.

But as I say, the shock was real when people came to understand that the Government of the State of New Mexico actually executed someone.

 

Where's the irony in a "conservative" wanting to "conserve" life?

Anyway mi amigo, if you were refering to me, I am not a "hard core conservative."

I fall somewhere in the middle. I am conservative on some issues and liberal on others. I think most Americans do too. Many Democrats in my congregation are far more conservative than I and they voted for Kerry.

 

It helps the balance of trade to have an export product that's in demand.

I hear you. California isn't really thrilled with the idea of executing somebody either. It's not something that it's easy to be comfortable with. The fact that it touches us is probably a good thing.

I imagine that it's especially hard for the suddenly ironically named Terminator. That's the one Governatorial duty that I'm really glad that I don't have. If you refuse clemency, you must feel as if you personally killed the man. It will stick with Arnold for life.

But as much as people around here don't enjoy what's happening, I think that most of them see Tookie's execution as the last act in a long running morality play. It was Tookie's own actions that set things in motion and now all the bad karma is finally coming home and playing itself out, bringing things to closure.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: California Governor Denies Clemency

The executioner is an agent of the state, which represents society at large. When a person commits a crime, they break the social contract in which they agree to respect the natural rights of life, liberty, and property held by all other members of that society. Thusly, society, in self-defense, has every right to revoke said criminal's rights to life, liberty, and property. If then society through the actions of the executioner dispatches said criminal to go say hi to Satan, then c'est la vie.

 

Terry Clark

Yes. Yes, there is something to closure, I guess.

As I said, our guy really had it coming, if anyone does. Here:

www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/clark741.htm

is a link to a single page with about as detailed a summary of the case and the execution as most people can stomach.

I had my dates a little off; there had been no New Mexico executions since 1960 and none since we killed this man.

 

Yo! Brother, if I can call myself a bleeding heart, I can call you hard core conservative. Seriously, the trend here is for the more conservative posters to be against this execution, and for the most liberal among us to be in favor of it. Sure you can appreciate the irony.

Anyway, I'm going to say this once. I agree that this man has done a lot of good with his life. I think he has done a lot to redeem himself. And I still think he deserves to die.

My only regrets are that we don't have the dead penalty here in Puerto Rico, that the dead penalty was not applied to Charles Manson, and that I can not flip one of the three switches myself.

 

And you call me hardcore?

What else is interesting is that most commentators on this have all said California, one of the most liberal states in the Union, supports the death penalty by about 90%.

Take care there in Puerto Rico. When I lived in New Orleans, one of my best friends was from Puerto Rico. His name was Roberto Cruz. Always wondered what happened to him. He was a good friend and a nice guy. We were in the 7th-9th grades together.

 

It does seem ironic. I am pretty liberal (surprise), but I find myself in favor of the death penalty in certain cases - much to the chagrin of my liberal friends. I don't know - I just feel there is a line that there that cannot be crossed. No matter how disadvantaged one's background, taking another life is just inexcusable.

Food for thought: can one argue for the death penalty on the grounds that it is actually MORE humane to kill someone rather than letting him rot in jail for the rest of his life? Just wondering.