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Posted by: Crvtte65

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/12/wi...ion/index.html
Governor denies clemency for ex-gang leader

Appeals court refuses to block Williams' execution



Monday, December 12, 2005; Posted: 5:18 p.m. EST (22:18 GMT)
SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency Monday for convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, who co-founded the Crips street gang in Los Angeles.

Schwarzenegger announced the decision shortly after a federal appeals court refused to block Williams' execution by lethal injection scheduled for shortly after midnight local time Monday.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who met with Williams earlier in the day, criticized Schwarzenegger for deciding not to spare Williams.

Jackson said Williams, who was convicted of killing four people in 1979, had earned clemency and that Schwarzenegger's decision was about "making politicians look tough, but that does not make it right."

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, rejected an affidavit from Williams' lawyers that suggested someone framed the onetime gang leader.

Unless the full 9th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Williams is scheduled to die by injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday (3:01 a.m. ET) at San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco.

California's Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to stay the execution on Sunday. The state has executed only 11 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

In their appeal to the 9th Circuit, attorneys pinned their hopes on the declaration of a new witness -- Gordon Bradbury von Ellerman -- a jail trusty detained with Williams in the Los Angeles County Jail from 1979 to 1980.

In the affidavit, von Ellerman said he was the cellmate of another trusty, identified as George "Roger" Oglesby.

Von Ellerman said Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel provided Oglesby with documents to aid him in testifying against Williams in return for reduced or dropped charges.

"I was personally aware that Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel would often provide information to these inmates so that they could help frame defendants for crimes," he said in the statement.

A statement from Schwarzenegger read: "The possible irregularities in Williams' trial have been thoroughly and carefully reviewed by the courts, and there is no reason to disturb the judicial decisions that uphold the jury's decisions that he is guilty of these four murders and should pay with his life."

Williams, who would be 52 on December 29, spent part of Monday with his attorneys and family members at San Quentin.

While in prison, Williams became an anti-gang crusader, but he has consistently refused to take part in a debriefing with authorities to provide them potentially valuable information about the Crips gangs, said lead prosecutor John Monaghan.

Williams has denounced gang violence and written children's books with an anti-gang message, donating the proceeds to anti-gang community groups.

He said he was trying to prevent young people from making the choices he did, which led to a life of crime and a death sentence.

Celebrities, teachers and anti-death penalty advocates have spoken on Williams' behalf, but Schwarzenegger questioned the sincerity of Williams' conversion to nonviolence.

"Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case," the governor wrote.

"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

A jury convicted Williams of killing a 26-year-old Los Angeles convenience store clerk in February 1979, shooting him twice in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun while the victim was face down on the floor.

The jury also convicted him of shooting and killing an immigrant Chinese couple and their 41-year-old daughter less than two weeks later while stealing less than $100 cash from their motel.

Both cases were handled in a single trial. Williams was sentenced to death in 1981

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Posted by: HOTLUNCH

Another view of this champion of anti-gang violence.


http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=20380

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Posted by: 94c

So what has the great Tookie done to correct all the evils committed out on the west coast, til this day, by his Crips?

Too bad they got rid of the electric chair or by this time tomorrow we would have a
"crispy crip" (sounds like a cereal don't it?)

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Posted by: mpd61

It's really too bad, as Capt. Eugenio would say " he was just starting to turn his life around"

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Posted by: MSP75

Quote:

Originally Posted by HOTLUNCH Another view of this champion of anti-gang violence. http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=20380

I checked out that Frontpage.com. Nice site.

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Posted by: Crvtte65

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/12/12/wi...ion/index.html


Supreme Court rejects Williams' plea

Schwarzenegger denies clemency for former gang leader



Monday, December 12, 2005; Posted: 9:38 p.m. EST (02:38 GMT)
SACRAMENTO, California (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stay the execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, clearing the way for him to die by injection shortly after midnight.

The high court was the former gang leader's last chance to escape execution following a denial of clemency from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier Monday and an appellate court panel rejected a request to stay his execution.

Williams, who co-founded the Crips street gang, is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday (3:01 a.m. ET) at San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who met with Williams earlier in the day, criticized Schwarzenegger for deciding not to spare Williams.

Jackson said Williams, who was convicted of killing four people in two 1979 robberies in Los Angeles, had earned clemency and that Schwarzenegger's decision was about "making politicians look tough, but that does not make it right."

Schwarzenegger announced his decision not to commute Williams' sentence to life in prison without parole shortly after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, rejected an affidavit from the convict's lawyers that suggested someone framed the onetime Los Angeles gang leader.

California's Supreme Court rejected an emergency request to stay the execution on Sunday.

In their appeal to the 9th Circuit, attorneys pinned their hopes on the declaration of a new witness -- Gordon Bradbury von Ellerman -- a jail trusty detained with Williams in the Los Angeles County Jail from 1979 to 1980.

In the affidavit, von Ellerman said he was the cellmate of another trusty, identified as George "Roger" Oglesby.

Von Ellerman said Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel provided Oglesby with documents to aid him in testifying against Williams in return for reduced or dropped charges.

"I was personally aware that Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel would often provide information to these inmates so that they could help frame defendants for crimes," he said in the statement.

A statement from Schwarzenegger read: "The possible irregularities in Williams' trial have been thoroughly and carefully reviewed by the courts, and there is no reason to disturb the judicial decisions that uphold the jury's decisions that he is guilty of these four murders and should pay with his life."

Williams, who would be 52 on December 29, spent part of Monday with his attorneys and family members at San Quentin.

While in prison, Williams became an anti-gang crusader, but he has consistently refused to take part in a debriefing with authorities to provide them potentially valuable information about the Crips gangs, said lead prosecutor John Monaghan.

Williams has denounced gang violence and written children's books with an anti-gang message, donating the proceeds to anti-gang community groups.

He said he was trying to prevent young people from making the choices he did, which led to a life of crime and a death sentence.

Celebrities, teachers and anti-death penalty advocates have spoken on Williams' behalf, but Schwarzenegger questioned the sincerity of Williams' conversion to nonviolence.

"Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case," the governor wrote.

"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

A jury convicted Williams of killing a 26-year-old Los Angeles convenience store clerk in February 1979, shooting him twice in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun while the victim was face down on the floor.

The jury also convicted him of shooting and killing an immigrant Chinese couple and their 41-year-old daughter less than two weeks later while stealing less than $100 cash from their motel.

Both cases were handled in a single trial. Williams was sentenced to death in 1981.

---

Posted by: RPD931

Good. This guy deserves death. While I can respect his so-called "turn around" of his life and tried to send anti-gang messages, it doesn't quite make-up for what he did. He's a little too late I'm afraid. He was an adult at the time of these killings, he should have figured it out then.

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Posted by: HousingCop

Tookie is dead now. Is Cali burning yet??

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Posted by: Delta784

Quote:

Originally Posted by HousingCop Tookie is dead now. Is Cali burning yet??

No official word yet. I have to be up in about 2 1/2 hours, but I can't turn off the TV, and I have a beer on ice, waiting to celebrate his demise. I'm going to regret this later.

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Posted by: Delta784

Ooops...never mind.

He's dead, I'm drinking my beer, and then going to bed!

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Posted by: USMCMP5811

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delta784 Ooops...never mind. He's dead, I'm drinking my beer, and then going to bed!

Delta, that wouldn't happen to be one of those Ghetto beers your so fond of now would it?

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Posted by: MA218

No word of rioting/fighting/burning as of yet.

Emphasis on "yet"

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Posted by: kwflatbed

Crips co-founder executed



By KIM CURTIS,



Associated Press Writer

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. - Convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang co-founder whose case stirred a national debate about capital punishment versus the possibility of redemption, was executed early Tuesday. 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.

The case became the state's highest-profile execution in decades. Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes argued 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.

Witnesses at the trial said he boasted about the killings, stating "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him." Williams then made a growling noise and laughed for five to six minutes, according to the transcript that the governor referenced in his denial of clemency.

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."

About 1,000 death penalty opponents and a few death penalty supporters gathered outside the prison to await the execution. 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.

Former Crips member Donald Archie, 51, was among those attending a candlelight vigil outside a federal building in Los Angeles. He said he would work to spread Williams' anti-gang message.

"The work ain't going to stop," said Archie, who said he was known as "Sweetback" as a young Crips member. "Tookie's body might lay down, but his spirit ain't going nowhere. I want everyone to know that, the spirit lives."

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.

"There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," Williams said recently during an interview with The Associated Press.

He said he wanted to continue his advocacy work from prison. "I haven't had a lot of joy in my life. But in here," he said, pointing to his heart, "I'm happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here."

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Posted by: DANIPD

Did anyone catch "VB" from the Fox Morning News (Boston) on Tuesday morning holding his version of a candlelight vigil for Tookie? I nearly spilled my coffee when VB got the "news" that Tookie was executed, blew out the candle, and said "Oh Well!"

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Posted by: Delta784

Quote:

Originally Posted by USMCMP5811 Delta, that wouldn't happen to be one of those Ghetto beers your so fond of now would it?

I probably should have tilted a 40 for old Tookie, but all I had on-hand was Miller Lite, and I wasn't making a special trip to the store for that a-hole.

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Posted by: Irish Wampanoag

1000 killers fried well done! Now to start off with a great start 1001 well done "TOOKIE" say hello to Hitler for me!!! PS who care if LA is burning its a shit hole.

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