I believe this story, regarding convicted killer Tookie Williams, has made national news over the past few weeks. Nonetheless, curious to hear what everyone's thoughts are...do you Schwarzenegger will step in and stop Tookie's scheduled execution?
As expected, community activists are protesting the December execution. According to one activist, all the recent news about Tookie is giving him a bad name and is attacking his character. Seems to me a person who was convicted of 4 murders did that to themselves, but that's just me...
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A US judge signed a death warrant for a former street gangster and convicted killer who went on to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in tackling youth violence.
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Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders set a December 13 date for the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, noting that his appeal against his death sentence had been rejected by the US Supreme Court on October 11.
"I am signing the warrant of execution," the judge said as several dozen opponents of the death penalty looked on in the crowded courtroom.
Williams, who co-founded Los Angeles' deadly Crips gang, was convicted in 1981 for the murders of four people and has been incarcerated in a small cell on the death row of San Francisco's San Quentin prison since then.
But since receiving his death sentence, Williams, 51, has renounced his gang past, penned children's books, been the subject of a television movie starring Jamie Foxx and been nominated for the world's top peace prize.
"The Stanley Williams case is about a man who has done what I think is the most important thing a man can do in this country, and that is reach out to the youth of this country with books, with tapes ...," Williams lawyer, Peter Fleming, said outside the courtroom.
Williams' legal team will appeal to movie star California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 8 for clemency and to reduce the prisoner's sentence from death to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month cleared the way for Williams' execution by lethal injection -- unless Schwarzenegger intervenes. But no condemned murderer has been granted clemency in California since 1967.
Outside the courthouse, demonstrators held up signs proclaiming "Executions Teach Vengeance and Violence", "Abolish the Death Penalty" and "Stop the Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams -- Keeping Him Alive Saves Lives."
A number of Williams' supporters chanted, "Let Tookie live!"
Williams was 16 when he and a high school friend -- Raymond Washington, who was later killed -- began the Crips street gang in South Los Angeles in 1971.
Known as "Big Took" to fellow Crips, Williams helped build the gang into a nationwide criminal enterprise that continues to spawn street violence more than 30 years later.
He was convicted and sentenced to death for committing four 1979 murders, but he has consistently maintained his innocence.
The first victim in the killings, which took place during two separate robberies two weeks apart, was a 23-year-old convenience store worker.
A witnessed who received immunity from prosecution testified at trial that he, Williams and two other men took 120 dollars from the store's cash register before Williams shot the young man execution-style and mocked the gurgling sounds the victim made as he lay dying.
Williams was also found guilty of the shotgun murders of a family of three people in a Los Angeles motel.
Williams, who presented an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the killings, argued in his appeal that Los Angeles County prosecutors had engaged in racial discrimination by seeking to keep black people off his trial jury.
As expected, community activists are protesting the December execution. According to one activist, all the recent news about Tookie is giving him a bad name and is attacking his character. Seems to me a person who was convicted of 4 murders did that to themselves, but that's just me...
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A US judge signed a death warrant for a former street gangster and convicted killer who went on to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in tackling youth violence.
ADVERTISEMENT
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders set a December 13 date for the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, noting that his appeal against his death sentence had been rejected by the US Supreme Court on October 11.
"I am signing the warrant of execution," the judge said as several dozen opponents of the death penalty looked on in the crowded courtroom.
Williams, who co-founded Los Angeles' deadly Crips gang, was convicted in 1981 for the murders of four people and has been incarcerated in a small cell on the death row of San Francisco's San Quentin prison since then.
But since receiving his death sentence, Williams, 51, has renounced his gang past, penned children's books, been the subject of a television movie starring Jamie Foxx and been nominated for the world's top peace prize.
"The Stanley Williams case is about a man who has done what I think is the most important thing a man can do in this country, and that is reach out to the youth of this country with books, with tapes ...," Williams lawyer, Peter Fleming, said outside the courtroom.
Williams' legal team will appeal to movie star California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger on November 8 for clemency and to reduce the prisoner's sentence from death to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month cleared the way for Williams' execution by lethal injection -- unless Schwarzenegger intervenes. But no condemned murderer has been granted clemency in California since 1967.
Outside the courthouse, demonstrators held up signs proclaiming "Executions Teach Vengeance and Violence", "Abolish the Death Penalty" and "Stop the Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams -- Keeping Him Alive Saves Lives."
A number of Williams' supporters chanted, "Let Tookie live!"
Williams was 16 when he and a high school friend -- Raymond Washington, who was later killed -- began the Crips street gang in South Los Angeles in 1971.
Known as "Big Took" to fellow Crips, Williams helped build the gang into a nationwide criminal enterprise that continues to spawn street violence more than 30 years later.
He was convicted and sentenced to death for committing four 1979 murders, but he has consistently maintained his innocence.
The first victim in the killings, which took place during two separate robberies two weeks apart, was a 23-year-old convenience store worker.
A witnessed who received immunity from prosecution testified at trial that he, Williams and two other men took 120 dollars from the store's cash register before Williams shot the young man execution-style and mocked the gurgling sounds the victim made as he lay dying.
Williams was also found guilty of the shotgun murders of a family of three people in a Los Angeles motel.
Williams, who presented an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the killings, argued in his appeal that Los Angeles County prosecutors had engaged in racial discrimination by seeking to keep black people off his trial jury.
. I'm not sure his change in genuine, or a long drawn out act, trying to save his life. In the end whether or not he killed those people he is guilty of a lot, probably as bad or worse. 
