Post by Emerald City on Dec 12, 2005 19:29:43 GMT -5
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger refused Monday 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 skeptical of Williams change of heart and was not swayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from more than 50,000 people who said Williams made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and a series of children's books about the dangers of gangs.
"Is Williams' redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise?" Schwarzenegger said in writing less than 12 hours before the execution. "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption." With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, Williams was set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison early Tuesday for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups. Williams, 51, was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery less than two weeks later. Williams claimed he was innocent.
Schwarzenegger's decision came immediately after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it would not block the execution and reopen the case because, among other things, there was no "clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence." His lawyers could still seek further legal reviews. Prosecutors and victims' advocates contended Williams was undeserving of clemency 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. 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. The California Supreme Court twice refused to reopen Williams' case. Immediately after the state high court's latest refusal Sunday, Williams' lawyers filed a petition with the federal appeals court in San Francisco. Federal courts, including the
U.S. Supreme Court, ruled against Williams in earlier appeals.
The last-ditch appeals claimed among other things that Williams 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 actor Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; 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. Williams was to be moved to a "death watch cell" at 6 p.m. and asked if he wants a last meal, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Todd Slosek said. Williams had said he would decline the meal.
Supporters and members of his legal team met with him before Schwarzenegger's decision was announced. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who joined death penalty opponents marching to the prison across the Golden Gate Bridge after dawn, was seen leaving San Quentin and was believed to have been among his visitors.
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?"
"Is Williams' redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise?" Schwarzenegger said in writing less than 12 hours before the execution. "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption." With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, Williams was set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison early Tuesday for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups. Williams, 51, was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery less than two weeks later. Williams claimed he was innocent.
Schwarzenegger's decision came immediately after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it would not block the execution and reopen the case because, among other things, there was no "clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence." His lawyers could still seek further legal reviews. Prosecutors and victims' advocates contended Williams was undeserving of clemency 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. 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. The California Supreme Court twice refused to reopen Williams' case. Immediately after the state high court's latest refusal Sunday, Williams' lawyers filed a petition with the federal appeals court in San Francisco. Federal courts, including the
U.S. Supreme Court, ruled against Williams in earlier appeals.
The last-ditch appeals claimed among other things that Williams 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 actor Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; 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. Williams was to be moved to a "death watch cell" at 6 p.m. and asked if he wants a last meal, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Todd Slosek said. Williams had said he would decline the meal.
Supporters and members of his legal team met with him before Schwarzenegger's decision was announced. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who joined death penalty opponents marching to the prison across the Golden Gate Bridge after dawn, was seen leaving San Quentin and was believed to have been among his visitors.
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?"