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Put a fork in him....he's done.
The Drudge Report is reporting that Gov. Schwarznegger has said no clemency to "Tookie" Williams. Tookie now has approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes to live.
Put a fork in him....he's done.
one word.........Justice
Bout time. Pay back is .
The fact that you would be happy about this is troubling.Tookie now has approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes to live.
Although I am anti-capital punishment, I agree with Schwarzenegger, it's not his place to overturn the jury's decision unless there was fault with the trial itself.
December 12, 2005
Gov. Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency for Crips Co-Founder
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution after midnight in a case that stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row.
Schwarzenegger was unswayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and pe ions from more than 50,000 people who said that Williams had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and children's books about the dangers of gangs.
"After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency," Schwarzenegger said, less than 12 hours before the execution. "The facts do not justify overturning the jury's verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case."
Schwarzenegger could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.
With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, Williams, 51, was set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison early Tuesday for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.
Williams' fate became one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres in decades.
Prosecutors and victims' advocates contended Williams was undeserving of clemency from the governor because he did not own up to his crimes and refused to inform on fellow gang members. They also argued that the Crips gang that Williams co-founded in Los Angeles in 1971 is responsible for hundreds of deaths, many of them in battles with the rival Bloods for turf and control of the drug trade.
Williams stood to become the 12th California condemned inmate executed since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977 after a brief hiatus.
Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery weeks later. Williams claimed he was innocent.
The last time a California governor granted clemency was in 1967, when Ronald Reagan spared a mentally infirm killer. Schwarzenegger -- a Republican who has come under fire from members of his own party as too accommodating to liberals -- rejected clemency twice before during his two years in office.
Just before the governor announced his decision on clemency, the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals denied Williams' request for a reprieve, saying among other things that there was no "clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence."
In his last-ditch appeal, Williams claimed that he should have been allowed to argue at his trial that someone else killed one of the four victims, and that shoddy forensics connected him to the other killings.
Williams was convicted of killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at a Los Angeles motel the family owned, and Albert Owens, 26, a 7-Eleven clerk gunned down in Whittier.
Among the celebrities who took up Williams' cause were Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; Sister Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in "Dead Man Walking"; Bianca Jagger; and former "M..A..S..H" star Mike Farrell. During Williams' 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
"If Stanley Williams does not merit clemency," defense attorney Peter Fleming Jr. asked, "what meaning does clemency retain in this state?"
The impending execution resulted in feverish preparations over the weekend by those on both sides of the debate, with the California Highway Patrol planning to tighten security outside the prison, where hundreds of protesters were expected.
A group of about three dozen death penalty protesters were joined by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as they marched across the Golden Gate Bridge after dawn Monday en route to the gates of San Quentin, where they were expected to rally with hundreds of people.
At least publicly, the person apparently least occupied with his fate seemed to be Williams himself.
"Me fearing what I'm facing, what possible good is it going to do for me? How is that going to benefit me?" Williams said in a recent interview. "If it's my time to be executed, what's all the ranting and raving going to do?"
See you later Tookie.
Sooner rather than later.
Something is seriously wrong with all of you
I think the worst part in all this is the guy who once played a pregnant man is deciding whether you live or die.
Why is that? You on both sides of the question? Some have posted in
favor of sparing him.
ok then, let me clarify, something is seriously wrong with being happy about another human being's death, especially one who has done nothing to you.
Feb. 28, 1979
Albert Owens, 26, is slain during a robbery at a 7-Eleven store in Pico Rivera, a town east of Los Angeles. Owens is found dead in a store room, shot twice in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun. The robbery nets $120.
***
March 11, 1979
Motel owners Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, her husband Yen-I Yang, 63, and their daughter Ye-Chen Li, 43, are killed during a robbery of the Brookhaven Motel on South Vermont Street in Los Angeles. The victims are shot at close-range with a 12-gauge shotgun. The robbery nets around $100.
***
March 13, 1981
Williams is found guilty for the first-degree murder and robbery of Albert Owens, the first-degree murders of Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Ye-Chen Li, and the robbery of Tsai-Shai Yang. The jury also finds true the allegation that Williams personally used the shotgun in each murder.
I don't think anyone is happy with anyone's death. But punishment is
punishment. You do the crime you do the time. As far as him doing nothing
to me. That is a matter of opinion. I think he did a crime against society as
a whole, since, well some would argue otherwise, I am part of that society,
he has done something to me.
I'm happy that justice is finally being served to Tookie. He's had 20 years of appeals - waay too long. He's lived 20 years longer than his 4 victims!
I'm sorry that Tookie decided to take this road - but it was HIS choice and now his choices have caught up to him.
Well if he really did turn to God, then no it's not punishment, because he will suffer less by dying. I think leaving a man in prison is enitire life is worse than killing him. Its not like he suffers when he's dying.
Wow, your THAT excited about someone's death?The Drudge Report is reporting that Gov. Schwarznegger has said no clemency to "Tookie" Williams. Tookie now has approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes to live.
Yeah, like blowing their brains out, while they lay on the floor. You excited
about their death.
Just like a Repuke to twist things around. Read what I said.
Yes xray, because we don't support the death penalty, it means that we were all excited that those four people were murdered.Yeah, like blowing their brains out, while they lay on the floor. You excited
about their death.
20 years x 12 x $2500/month minimum = $600,000 basic prison living costs, plus $1000s of legal $hours.
Xray, because I don't support the death penalty, am I against the troops? I just wanted to check in with you before I support the wrong thing here. Thanks in advance, I appreciate it.
Rehabilitation doesn't mean a thing when it comes to the death penalty. It's all about retribution.
But I think that's part of the point. The death penalty is generally meted out to those who are deemed incapable of being rehabilitated -- in Texas law, the jury must answer 3 questions before deciding that a convict should be sentenced to death, and one of those questions concerns the likelihood of rehabilitation. Notwithstanding arguments against the death penalty in the first instance, if someone is deemed incapable of rehabilitation but then proves to be rehabilitated and motivated to make a positive use of his life, why not reconsider execution? The only reason for not doing so is a retributive bloodlust.
If a guy like this, who chooses to make something positive out of his bad cir stances, can't be spared upon proof of his rehabilitation, why would any other death row inmate ever be inclined to try to make himself a better person? Put another way, don't we want to encourage even the worst amongst us to become better, or are we so satisfied that these people are so bad that we have no societal interest in encouraging growth and rehabilitation in that group?
Tookie will die. Let the riots begin.
From what I know...even my liberal ass seeks justice.
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