雪軒齋隨想: Stanley Tookie Williams

Old news...But still worth mentioning..
Source: NYTIMES

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 12 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected arguments on Monday that the death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams was either innocent of capital murder or worthy of mercy because of his claims of redemption and denied a clemency petition to commute his sentence to life in prison.

The governor's highly anticipated decision seemed to all but seal the fate of Mr. Williams, whose execution was scheduled for Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. Pacific time. On Monday evening, hours after rejecting the clemency request, Mr. Schwarzenegger also turned down a request for a stay of execution based on a last-minute claim of innocence.

Mr. Williams's lawyers cited new accounts from witnesses in making the request. A similar request was filed late in the evening, but with an hour left before the execution, Mr. Schwarzenegger had not responded, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Williams, 51, a leader of the Crips gang of Los Angeles who was convicted of murdering four people in 1979 amid an avalanche of gang violence there, suffered two other setbacks Monday as a federal appeals court and then the Supreme Court refused to grant a stay of execution.

In his decision denying clemency, issued less than 12 hours before Mr. Williams was scheduled to die by lethal injection, Mr. Schwarzenegger wrote that the case had been appealed to various courts since Mr. Williams was condemned in 1981, each one upholding his conviction.

The governor described the four murders in chilling detail, included a long list of the evidence against Mr. Williams, and said the proof of his guilt was "strong and compelling."

"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings," Mr. Schwarzenegger wrote, "there can be no redemption. In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do."

In South Los Angeles, where the Crips have been blamed for hundreds of killings, several residents said they believed that Mr. Williams should be put to death.

"If he'd have killed your daughter, you'd want him dead," said Lee Johnson, 89, a retired construction worker. "He killed somebody. You got to pay for what you do."

At San Quentin at 6 p.m., officials moved Mr. Williams into what is known as the "death watch cell," a 6-by-8-foot enclosure with a toilet and a sink about 15 feet from the execution chamber, and gave him a stack of 50 to 75 letters.

Mr. Williams decided in the final hours to allow five witnesses to his death. In an interview on Nov. 29 with The New York Times, he said he would not request a last meal.

"I'd be out of my mind to accept a meal from a place that wants to destroy me," he said.

Mr. Williams said he was at peace with his imminent death. But, he said: "To threaten me with death does not accomplish the means of the criminal justice system or satiate those who think my death or my demise will be a closure for them. Their loved ones will not rise up from the grave and love them. I wish they could. I sympathize or empathize with everyone who has lost a loved one. But I didn't do it. My death would not mollify them."

Of the execution, he said: "I'll go through it with dignity, with integrity, with love and bliss in my heart. I smile at everything, and I'm quite sure I'll smile then, too."