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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Crips founder Stan Tookie Williams this afternoon.
A last-minute reprieve for Tookie is considered a longshot, and unless something dramatic happens in the 11th hour, Williams will be put to death by lethal injection just after midnight in San Quentin. If it happens, Williams will be just the 12th person to be executed in California since death penalty was re-established in 1977.
Williams was convicted in 1981 of killing a convenience store clerk during holdup and then a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery a few weeks later.
According to an Associated Press report:
Schwarzenegger was unconvinced that Williams had had a change of heart, and he was unswayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes who said the inmate had made amends by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs... Williams claimed he was innocent...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.
Now, whether you are for or against Arnie's decision is completely up to you. But consider this fact illuminated by Marc Cooper in last week's LA Weekly:
More than 3,000 people currently sit on death row, slowly awaiting execution. About one of five are in California. Blacks and whites have been the victims of murder in almost equal numbers, but 80 percent of those executed since 1977 were convicted of murders of white people. And more than 40 percent of those awaiting execution are blacks.
Just something to think about. And the more we think about the death penalty, the more numb we get.
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"And the more we think about the death penalty, the number we get."
-- I'm not sure this makes any sense. Seems like a couple words have been deleted?
It doesn't make much sense. Then again the pathetic Tookie-lovers don't make much sense.
Much of the black on black crime is drug related, which makes the victim less sympathetic and it is harder to get people to testify. The black murders of whites often involved other felonies like robbery, making the death penalty easier to get.
And who cares about the statistics - this guy earned his ticket to the chair. Good riddance.
More than 40% of those on death row are black. OK. What percentage of convicted murderers are black?
Riddle me this: If killing people is wrong, why do we kill people to show killing people is wrong?
Revenge.
But you act like that is a bad thing.
I care as much about Tookie as he would about me. What I do care about are the thousands of young people who live in fear of these fucking gangs. Good kids who can't walk to school or hang out without getting shot. Where are all the black leaders, that idiot Jamie Foxx, etc. when someone graduates high school? Gets a scholarship? Stays OUT of jail? Oh, they're trying to free some scum bag who shoots veterans in the back and women in the face.