What do you guys think about the decision thats lead to his passing? I personally believe he should have gotten a second chance. But thats my opinion, I just wanted to know what you guys thought.
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What do you guys think about the decision thats lead to his passing? I personally believe he should have gotten a second chance. But thats my opinion, I just wanted to know what you guys thought.
It is a terrible thing, but did he give his victims a second chance? The decision which led to his execution was his own.
A minimum of 4 suicide attempts WITH A SHOTGUN, that unfortunately struck other people (a convenience store worker in the back while lying on his stomach, a 70 something year old grandfather, his 60 something year old wife, and their 40 something year old daughter) and 25 years later he finally managed to get it done.
Bad humor aside, all kinds of people have been saying that he was reformed, he has changed, he found God, etc... yet to the last he denied his involvement... he didn't seem to have much remorse for his actions, isn't asking for forgiveness as he continued to deny it.
Now he can write children's books in hell
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Clemency hearing this week
As the state's highest-profile execution in a quarter century draws near, both sides are vying to win over Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has scheduled a private clemency hearing for December 8.
At the heart of the debate is whether Williams really has changed from the thug who once fed a growing drug problem with PCP-soaked cigarettes, toted a 12-gauge shotgun, and lifted weights to build enormous biceps.
Born in New Orleans in 1953, Williams had a 17-year-old mother and a father who walked out before his first birthday, according to his memoir, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption" published last year. When he was 6, he and his mother rode a Greyhound bus to California and it wasn't long before he was a regular at Juvenile Hall.
He admits he became a "megalomaniac ... conceited, indifferent." He beat people, robbed them, even shot at them, but says he never stuck around long enough to see if they lived or died. He didn't care.
Williams arrived at San Quentin's death row on April 20, 1981. He continued his trouble-making ways during his early days in prison. "I gave this place hell," he says.
As he began to educate himself and reflect on his life, he grew determined to change.
And once again, does any amount of good deeds make up for the lives of the 4 people (at least) that he murdered.
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Here is another story, can't make an informed decision without the facts. and as funny as is sounds...
"Asta La Vista, Tookie"
Quote:
Gang Founder Claimed Innocence Until the End
Dec 13, 11:15 AM (ET)
By KIM CURTIS
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - Stanley Tookie Williams maintained his innocence right up until his death, even when an admission of guilt may have spared him execution.
Even after the courts and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected a flurry of Williams' last-ditch appeals before his execution early Tuesday, his supporters vowed to prove his innocence.
Williams, the Crips gang co-founder whose case stirred a national debate about capital punishment versus the possibility of redemption, was executed Tuesday morning for killing four people in 1979.
Williams, 51, died at 12:35 a.m. Officials at San Quentin State Prison seemed to have trouble injecting the lethal mixture into his muscular arm. As they struggled to find a vein, Williams looked up repeatedly and appeared frustrated, shaking his head at supporters and other witnesses.
"You doing that right?" it sounded as if he asked one of the men with a needle.
After he was declared dead, his supporters shouted in unison: "The state of California just killed an innocent man," as they walked out of the chamber.
Williams' case became one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres in decades, with Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes arguing that Williams' sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he had made amends by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs and violence.
In the days leading up to the execution, state and federal courts refused to reopen his case. Monday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Williams' request for clemency, suggesting that his supposed change of heart was not genuine because he had not shown any real remorse for the killings committed by the Crips.
"Is Williams' redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise?" Schwarzenegger wrote. "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."
Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple's daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned. Williams claimed he was innocent.
Lora Owens, Owens' stepmother, watched Williams die. In the days before the execution, she was one of the outspoken advocates who believed the execution should go forward. She said her stepson was shot twice in the back, even though he begged Williams for his life.
"I believe it was a just punishment long overdue," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."
Williams was led into the death chamber at midnight, shackled and handcuffed. He declined to give a formal final statement.
He seemed frustrated by the length of time it took officials to insert the intravenous lines in his arms. He repeatedly looked up, shaking his head at supporters, reporters and other witnesses whom officials did not identify.
In all, it took nearly a half-hour to prepare Williams for execution. It took much less time to die; he appeared to stop breathing just moments after a prison official read the death warrant and said, "The execution shall now proceed."
Williams was described as "complacent, quiet and thoughtful," by Corrections Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton in the hours before the execution. He declined to have a last meal as he waited in the holding cell, drinking milk instead. Prison officials said he spent his last hours reading mail, watching television and visiting with his lawyers and friends.
After watching her longtime friend die, Barbara Becnel told the crowd of hundreds gathered outside prison gates that she would prove Williams' innocence and that Schwarzenegger was a "cold-blooded murderer."
She said Williams "was brave and strong and he was everything we believed him to be."
Singer Joan Baez, M A S H actor Mike Farrell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were among the celebrities who protested the execution.
"Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here is here to try to enlist the morality and soul of this country," said Baez, who sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" on a small plywood stage set up just outside the gates.
A contingent of 40 people who had walked the approximately 25 miles from San Francisco held signs calling for an end to "state-sponsored murder." But others, including Debbie Lynch, 52, of Milpitas, said they wanted to honor the victims.
"If he admitted to it, the governor might have had a reason to spare his life," Lynch said.
Among the celebrities who took up Williams' cause were Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip; Sister Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in "Dead Man Walking"; and Bianca Jagger. During Williams' 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
Williams founded the Crips gang with a friend in 1971 and managed stay out of trouble for years despite his claims that he was a drug-fueled thug who robbed, beat and shot at people.
Authorities say the gang is responsible for hundreds of deaths, many of them in battles with the rival Bloods for turf and control of the drug trade.
Whatever luck Williams found on the streets avoiding the law ended in 1979 after four people were killed in a pair of armed robberies that were connected to him and his pump-action shotgun.
Williams never wavered from his claim of innocence and said he refused to confess to crimes he did not commit, even if doing so would save his life. He said he redeemed himself while in prison and apologized for starting the Crips.
"There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," Williams said recently during several hours of interviews with The Associated Press. He said that while he wanted to live and continue his work with children, he was prepared to die.
"I haven't had a lot of joy in my life. But in here," he says, pointing to his heart, "I'm happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here."
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"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." -- John Quincy Adams
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He got to hang around far too long. All those that are making him out to be reformed are missing the point. He was a vicious, scumbag thug when he killed those people and he has paid the penalty that our laws demand. If he was truly reformed God (or whatever entity you believe in) will sort him out. I understand that he was frustrated and upset because the process of finding a vein in his arm, to inject his cocktail was difficult to find and he had to help the person who was setting it in place to find it. GOOD, I hope he had time to sweat a little and have at a least a modicum of the terror he inflicted on those he killed. I have no pity for him or any other thug. Just my thoughts since you asked.
So he "reformed himself" over the past 25+ years. Whoopedy doo! First of all, what else did he have to do with all his free time??
Secondly, he was convicted by a jury of his peers for this particular crime spree... who knows how many other crimes he did before that? You don't get to start a criminal gang enterprise by picking daisies.
There are a lot of people boo hooing about how he changed, how much good he did blah blah blah. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. The point is, the sentence he was given was his PUNISHMENT.
Just because he gained all this notoriety and caused all the Hollywood anti-death penalty folks to get their collective panties in a wad does not change that fact.
You know what really hacks me off about death penalty cases in general? The majority of the time the convicted felon sticks around trying to weasel out of his/her punishment for more years than the victim(s) were alive.
I say good riddance. He had a sudden change of heart only after he knew he was going to pay for his crimes by death. I'm not one to judge. I'm really a live and let live kinda guy. But, with that said, I really feel that he got what he deserved. Lord knows his victims didn't get a chance. Why should he? I'm sorry but writing childrens books doesn't cut it with me. That's my two cents.
Some things deserve a second chance. This is not one of them.
An eye for an eye.
Although we might not believe in the ultimate penalty, this particular case has been hashed 'bout for twenty five years. Always the same conclusion, a consensus.
Juries of his peers made the final decision.
Sad for all. Second chance? Sure! I think Mr. Wms. had more than a second chance.
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Radimus that was some great info. When Tookie was convicted the jury gave him the death penalty. They didn't say, "you get the death penalty unless you become reformed." Just as there's no turning back from death, there should be no turning back from jail sentences.
" all the Hollywood anti-death penalty folks to get their collective panties in a wad does"
Cannot believe someone else used my favorite saying .......way to go. My kids say I am the only person in the world to use it...but now I have proff that I am not alone.
" all the Hollywood anti-death penalty folks to get their collective panties in a wad does"
Cannot believe someone else used my favorite saying .......way to go. My kids say I am the only person in the world to use it...but now I have proff that I am not alone.
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