It’s just been announced – "Tookie" Williams, who brutally murdered several people, and was
sentenced to die….will be executed tomorrow morning at 12:01 a.m. Governor Schwarzenegger has denied a request to grant clemency.
While this may have been a deeply-thought out moral decision for the Governor, it also happens to be a decision that will sit well with the vast majority of California voters. Especially with Republicans.
Here is the AP story:
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, the former gang leader whose case stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row.
Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison after midnight for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.
Hollywood stars and death penalty opponents mounted a campaign to save his life, making him one of the nation’s biggest death-row cause celebres in decades. His supporters argued that the founder of the murderous Crips gang had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and children’s books about the dangers of gangs.
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.
Read the rest of the story here.
[Update: Here is a link to the full decision.]