Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

ubiquitious bbc link

It seems to me that regardless of whether he was guilty, and regardless of what relatives of the dead might think, after a quarter of a century in jail this man had apparently grown, matured, and turned his back on gang culture. In an enlightened society, he might be considered for release, or at least moved to more comfortable conditions to serve a full life sentence.

Instead, governor Arnie has "wrestled with the profound consequences" :rolleyes: and refused clemency (vote winner++). He'll die in 5 hours. If he remained alive, he'd continue his writing, maybe influence others for the better and save lives. For a country that claims to have a believing christian majority, it beggars belief.

What's with the 25 year wait before execution too? It's like people sat around and thought "what's the most inhumane way we can do this?"

However, I'm hoping dda will have some interesting background info for this story, as I suspect the way it's being reported, that America is executing a rehabilitated man, might not be quite the injustice it appears.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I guess it is too late for him now, but I really really hope it turns out that he (or any other person seeking clemency) is found to be innocent while Schwarzenegger is Guvernor.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Executing this guy does seem to be a pretty poor decision (at best) but to be fair, he did found a large violent gang and therefore presumably was involved in at least some murders / violence at some point. This is not to say he deserves to be executed, or that "everyone is guilty of something" or anything like that, but it's hardly likely to be one of those cases where he was a regular dude who got framed by the police for random reasons.

I consider myself a libertarian and obviously oppose the state killing people - however I do not quite understand the strength of feeling that capital punishment in the United States seems to invoke in some. Recently the Americans executed their thousand post-1976 convict. A thousand people over the course of 29 years (or 34 a year). In many ways, that's a lot, and some see it as a terrible indictment of the violence of the system. But in many ways, and no disrespect to the people executed, it's a drop in the ocean.

How many people killed in Iraq? How many people killed in South East Asia? Or by client regimes in Central America? Hell, even if we're saying that American lives are worth many times more than mere foreigners, how about simply deaths in prisons generally?

I understand this has got much better recently but according to a random google, the suicide rate for prisoners in America in 1983 was 129 per 100,000. Given the prison rate was about a million or so that dwarfs the death penalty rate in a single year. Homicides in prison (which again, have dropped) were 54 per 100,000 (so again, in 1983, more people were murdered in prison than the state of Texas - the biggest user of the death penalty by far - has executed in the last 29 years).

I'm not saying the death penalty is a good thing, but I am baffled that some people seem particularly horrified when someone is given a (relatively) painless death but when many more are shanked in the shower (or whatever) or simply hang themselves it's not a big concern. This is not to speak of the people who die in prison simply of ill-health (which of course is pretty much the point of a true life sentence).

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

He killed 4 people. He was found guilty and sentenced to death...

Just because he improved, wrote books and was "known", his punishment shouldnt change. Theres probably lots of people whos regretted what they did and become good persons while waiting for execution, which we never hear of. What about them? They wouldnt be worse people, and should be threathed the same way as he, if he had been saved. To me it doesnt seem fair... as im sure many good unkown people have been executed.

On the other hand, maybe noone shud be executed. I honestly dont know what I think about that tho, so I dont wanna discuss it.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

oh I agree, he probably did some very nasty stuff in his time, but is is this offence that he has been executed for.
true, though personally I don't care about the numbers, it is more the moral stance of it. they could have executed tens of thousands of people or even just a single person in the past 30 years, but fundamentally the system that allows, condones and even implements such things I feel, is wrong.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Check the last paragraph of this article about his previous clemency plea in 2002 here http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...11/BA91326.DTL

Williams didnt confess the crimes he was found guilty for and therefore also didnt regret them.

If you believe his trial and his conviction where fair and that he actually did murder those people - how can you grant clemency to somebody who murdered several people and doesnt admit it nor ever regrets it? Can you really grant clemency to a multiple murder who doesnt regret what he has done?

It is a whole different story if you think he wasnt guilty of the crimes and actually was innocent in which case the US just had the ultimate failure of their justice system.

To me the decision mostly depends if you believe he was guilty of the crimes he was convicted for or not. I personally cant judge that since i havent studied the case, but since after his conviction and many appeals and throughout 25 years none of his lawyers nor himself could convince different judges and juries - i guess it is more likely that he is guilty than innocent.

A tough decision but i can fully understand Schwarzenegger - people seem to forget too quickly the dead people and their relatives over a bunch of written books.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

The law is not there to give satisfaction for the victims but to act as a deterrent.
Also, the law is there for the system, the victims aren't important as such as they are interchangable.


He should've ofcourse admitted his wrongs if he ever wanted a chance for clemency.







ps. Ofcourse there is some kind of satisfaction for the victims to see the perpetrator punished, however, that is not the final aim of any law. Or well, it shouldn't.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

well, you can also question wether or not the death penalty itself is such a great idea or if it isnt enough to throw someone into jail for most of his live.
Either you decide that killing people is bad and you dont do it or you dont. It really doesnt make much of a difference if we talk about a single person or a whole society.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

That's a bit of a simplification though. Killing people might be appropriate in certain circumstances, but not others. Locking people up is wrong in certain circumstances, but justified in others, etc, etc.

Killing someone in self-defence is totally different from killing someone for a laugh (for instance). Although I do agree there shouldn't really be a distinction (from an ethical point of view) between the state and the individual in the sense some give it.
That's not the only purpose of the law (or more precisely punishment).

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

He was known because he managed to influence a lot of "dangerous/violent" people into becoming good persons. This guy was better alive than dead.

To the question about having excecutions or not: Not. It's better to let them sit on a cell the rest of their lifes than excecuting them. I know I would rather die than sit in jail the rest of my life. Death punishment is much less of a penality than letting them sit in rest of their lifes imo.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

i'm unsure as to why you have to admit to doing something to regret having done it.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I'm against the death penalty in general, but if this man had been let off simply because he had a few famous friends who got him some publicity, and because he's supposedly converted, "Death" wouldnt mean "death" any more. Someone could kill people, show that theyve repented, get one of the Baldwin brothers to go "umm, dont kill him please. also ps plz hire me. i do nude :( :( :(", and be spared.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

it's letting people know.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

yes, that probably was a simplification. To say it in other words: a human live is something valuable, so you dont end it. If a state or governemnt or society or whatever you want to call it ends human lives, no matter what reason, they become less valuable.
(and, yes, locking pople up in small rooms is also bad, but you need to do something...)

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

He wouldn't have been fully pardononed in a million years, but he could have - and should have - had his sentence commuted to life.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

in general i agree with dante. i used to oppose it on foreign policy grounds; "it's-wrong-to-torture-people-but-it's-okay-to-kill-them" seeming like a tough sell. but anymore what we're saying is "it's-wrong-to-torture-people-but-it's-okay-to-torture-people" and the death penalty thing seems silly.

i still think it's morally wrong, but even with respect to our prison system, it's hard to justify it as a high priority issue. Last year there were on the order of 50 executions and on the order of 1,000,000 rapes.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I can't really see how people can say he was rehabilitated.

He never apologized for the crimes he was sentenced for. He always maintained his innocence, so fair enough, but then it's a question of whether or not you believe the (considerable) evidence against him. And if you believe the evidence, then his failure to admit and apologize for his crimes must surely weigh heavily against him.

He expressed regret for founding the Crips gang but refused to give police any information that could have helped them arrest and prosecute members of the Crips.

He wrote (actually co-wrote) some children's books deploring gangs and gang violence.


You can read the LA County DA's (lengthy) response to Tookie's clemency petition here, which includes a review of the evidence which convicted him.


I can respect those who oppose the death sentence as a matter of principle. I have a harder time with those who claim Tookie was innocent or rehabilitated.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

There's a difference between rehabilitated and more useful alive than dead.
life imprisonment, the alternative, hardly implies rehabilitated.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

The amusing, and interesting, thing is that if there hadn't been a twenty five year wait he wouldn't have had the chance to co-author those books against gangs or whatever the hell crap people are using to oppose this specific death sentence.



PS Will Ahnold be killing the guy himself? With the shotgun from Terminator II?

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

He's already dead you poo-paddler.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Oh dear what a pity never mind.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

It's not a pity. Necrophilia is now possible.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Both sentences for sure are true, so if Gov. Schwarzenegger would have been asked to judge if the guy was more useful to society dead or alive, things might have come out different. Didnt matter regarding a clemency appeal for a convicted multiple murder who couldnt even make the first step necessary for forgiveness - admitting what he did.

On a related sidenote - several french citizens are just beeing "rehabilitated" as they did spend a total of 26 years in prison together, their children where taken from them and they where publicly seen as some of the most cruel child molesters on this planet. The french minister of justice publicly apologised to them in his official position and there will be several consequences affecting the law process in france due to this. Some scandalous things happened during this case and it certainly would deserve at least as much publicity as the Williams case, but i bet most havent heard a word about it :(

ps: its amazing how ignorant people running "for a cause" are. I just heard a commentary in a german radio station regarding the Williams case and the journalist kept making snappy remarks towards Schwarzenegger and how of course he couldnt meet with Williams before making the decision as otherwise he would have noticed that Williams was a human beeing and not somebody he can slaughter away like a Terminator in his movies. Too bad that Williams himself said that he met Schwarzenegger at Venice Beach long time ago.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Evidence against a Black Man of any description , which has been provided by the LAPD , a force with a history of racism, has a lot less weight than it would anywhere else.

However he was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and Schwarzenegger respected that. Actually, he probably didnt understand the argument and was told not to give him clemency, as it would damage his chances of re-election (like the budget deficit and power outages havent done that already).

Either way,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4523502.stm
hes dead now and all thats left is the obligatory 2 days of the new york press debating the death penalty and 48 hours worth of rioting and excessive force from the LAPD.

American society seems to repeat itself over and over again on the West Coast. Doesnt anyone actually learn from the mistakes of their recent history?

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I have the bad feeling that given this case, his history of denied clemencies and "political tradition" Gov. Schwarzeneggers campaign team is already looking for the right one to grant clemency to - just to the right time.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

The ad hominem is not to be confused with various measures that are prudent to take when delegating cognition to others, such as checking people's credentials before relying on their testimony.

(bottom of your linked page)

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I THINK THE US COURTS MIGHT HAVE CHECKED THAT BEFORE THEY EXECUTED THE GUY CONSIDERING THEY WAITED TWENTY FIVE ****ING YEARS, DON'T YOU?


Apologies for bold and caps lock but I felt it conveyed my point rather well.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I personally think thats pretty likely (not so much the US courts but the lawyers of Mr. Williams) - and i mentioned that in a previous posting. However your reply was pointed at somebody who obviously thinks differently and therefore what i cited applys :D

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I think it's more the failure of the thinking process rather the difference of it we should be pointing out here.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

More useful to whom? Who gets to decide which inmates on death row are useful and which are not? And by what standard?

And what does it mean to say that someone is more useful alive than dead? At one extreme you could argue that everyone is potentially more useful alive than dead--in the sense that anyone might do something wonderful in the future (discover some great invention, paint a masterpiece, etc). This would seem to quickly devolve into a no-death-penalty argument--is that what you meant? Towards the other extreme we could give each inmate on death row, say, five years to demonstrate their 'usefulness'. If they can't sell enough inventions or books or whatever then it's off to the execution chamber. Literally, publish or perish. :/

That would have a disturbing utilitarian aspect, in that the death penalty would be enforced not on the basis of the acts of the criminals, but on their talents as artists, authors, etc. (i.e., their usefulness). Frankly, that seems to me ultimately more dehumanizing than simply killing them (we're killing you because you're an unrepentant brutal multiple-murderer and your poetry sucks). :(

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

really there are three options,

1. End the death penalty
2. Your 'dehumanizing' utilitarian option
3. Mass suicide

Because even though the marginal case of a person slated for death upon whose continued existence humanity depends seems an irrelevant hypothetical, if you do say "we'll wait until that happens" you've already selected option 2.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

'mon the bloods!

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

yeh it works really well doesn't it :rolleyes:

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

To me it seems that's exactly why he shouldn't be executed. The capital punishment (and excuse me while I google for a moment, I'd like something quotable* on this) was reinstated in 1976. An excerpt from the ruling:

Basically, the ruling backs Arnie. And to be honest, I think there are cases where the death penalty is justified. Serial killers, pathological killers or rapists, people who use <blink> or <marquee> tags on websites and spammers are all people that can't be reformed (ok, maybe not the blink/marquee people, but come on).

However, if you have any belief in a reformatory prison system, then is this not a (and I hesitate to call it this) text book example of the system working? I mean, up until the point where they injected poison into him. At that point it was a great example of the penal system finding the nature of the defendant appropriate to use as social retribution. If prison can't reform people, why the **** do we let them back out in the first place? At least the 3-strikes guys were consistent in their idiocy.

PS. Wikipedia says Tookie was his actual middle name, not some jolly pirate nickname.

* I said quotable damnit, not accurate.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Letting him off would invite more criminals to commit crimes and then pretend to have reformed.
Fact is, he killed 4 people, he has to be punished.
There are way too many people who can lie through their teeth to you and make it sound believable out there. I've met many people who lie to others (teachers) about things that occured, and if I hadn't witnessed the incident, I would have believed them.
How do you know he has reformed and hasn't just written books to make it seem so. How do you know he won't go back out there and kill more innocent people.
A leopard never changes it's spots.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

If they, for all intents and purposes, behave like reformed citizens because 'otherwise they're gonna ****ing nail me', that's fine by me. Let it be between them and whatever high power they swear by whether or not they're 'just doing it to stay alive'.

Here was me thinking life without parole was punishment.

Woah. Woah there nelly. Who on earth said 'let him out'? I most certainly didn't. He can spend his life dying of prison disease for all I care. I mean, he didn't need to be outside to be a positive influence or 'reformed' did he?

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I kinda jumped headfirst into this argument, I saw the people on the news saying "release him" etc and "let him walk free" and assumed that the people here had the same views. I wouldn't care if he died in prison or was executed, I just don't want him released and want him punished.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

The guy held up A 7-11 and shot a 51 year old veteran in the back with a shotgun twice. WHILE HE WAS LAYING DOWN ON THE GROUND.

He then held up a motel, and for the AWESOME SUM OF 100$ he shot and killed an asian man, his wife, and thier child.

Yeah, he really deserves to live for not regretting that.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Only in the US could the fact that his victim was a "veteran" have any relevance whatsoever to anything.

(And it's "lying", by the way, not "laying".)

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

I don't know, it's the sort of thing I can imagine reading in the Daily Mail or similar. "War hero beaten by thugs" and whatnot.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Christian assaulted by liberal elite. Atheist establishment destroys christmas. Terrorists want your soul.

Frankly I don't think there's a headline I can't imagine reading in the Daily Mail.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

1)please tell me you think in terms of 'deserves to die' rather than 'deserves to live', because if your mindset is that people have to meet a standard to be spared rather than transgress to the point where they must be killed i think frankly its worth bombing your entire landmass from orbit just to make sure.

2)prove he did it.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

No tears for "Tookie".

I do not support the death penalty for totally non-moral reasons.

I do not like the death penalty because I believe it undermines peoples confidence in the justice system. Judges who are trying to avoid a death penalty to a particular individual are forever making questionable rulings that not only confuse and upset a large portion of the population but also lead to unanticipated consequences on every other criminal case that comes along thereafter.

However, I also believe that a society can and will protect itself in whatever manner it thinks necessary. As such, I accept that the death penalty is something which each political entity is entitled to make for itself.

Personally, I have never accepted a case to prosecute which could have resulted in the death penalty. However, not feeling it my position to superimpose my judgement for that of the people of the state of California, I have set in on a number of meetings where it was decided whether we should or should not seek the death peanalty in a particular case. I have voted that particular cases were proper cases, under our law and in the standards of my community, in which to seek the death penalty.

Tookie Williams was a viscious individual who spent most of his years before his arrest in the pursuit of violence and the spreading of the culture of violence through the Crips.

After he was convicted and sentenced Tookie:

June 30, 1981---Tookie kicked the crap out of another inmate.

January 26, 1982---Tookie threatened to kill or have killed a guard who was trying to get him to return to
his cell.

January 28, 1982---Tookie through chemical agents into the face and eyes of a guard causing chemical
burns and hospital treatment.

January 29. 1982---For the third time in two days, Tookie attacked a guard by throwing chemicals at a
guard.

February 16, 1984---The Tookster attacked another inmate and would not cease beating him until warning
shots were fired.

June 8, 1984---Tookie threatened to kill a guard.

July 4, 1986---Tookie attacked and beat a fellow inmate.

October 10, 1988---Williams was the victim of a stabbing attack which was in retaliation for stabbing of
another inmate by the Crips which Tookie had ordered.

December 24, 1991---Tookie again attacked and beat another inmate until warning shots were fired.

July 6, 1993---Tookie is involved in another fight where a shank was involved and would not cease and
desist until warning shots were fired.

All of this occurred while Tookie was on death row.

Tookie remained a member of the Crips up to his death as far as could be told by prison authorities.

Despite how he supposedly inspired so many to renounce gangs, he remains a role modle for gang members in the community. He never renounced the Crips or gave law enforcement any information on gang activities.

The judicial system looked at all of the claims of innocence and bad trial for 25 years and repeatedly judges, including the 9th District Circuit Court of Appeals, the most anti-death penalty court in America, and determined that the trial was fair and the evidence of guilt was overwhelming.

The fact that it took 25 years in not unusual here. We recently had a death penalty from this county overturned and the case returned for trial after 23 years.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

That's exactly the sort of thing I expected. I'd read a lot of news stories portraying him as a reformed character doing good, and very little on his misdeeds. They gave the impression that those demanding his death were being small-minded because he didn't apologise/show remorse etc.

Thanks dda :)

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Wrong. You speak a different dialect of the english language.

Only in Europe\Britain do they not have respect for the people who served thier country and gave them freedom.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

No, you're simply illiterate.

(The American Heritage Dictionary labels your usage "nonstandard", which is a polite dictionary way of saying "wrong".)

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

What the hell? They gave him more chemicals only a few days after he'd attacked a guard by throwing them in his face?

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Sometimes, it is a polite way of saying that he pissed in a cup and threw that on a guard. It now would be called "gassing" in penitentiary language.

I don't know if this is what happened or not but it could be.

Re: Stanley "Tookie" Williams (hey dda!)
 

Tell me how a 51 year old man murdered in the 80's was a vietnam vet? Maybe WW2 dumbass.