Nov. 19 LOUISIANA: 5th Circuit headed back to New Orleans----Katrina forced appeals court to temporarily set up shop in Houston The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is abandoning its temporary Houston quarters and heading back home to New Orleans, now that a measure of order has been restored after Hurricane Katrina's devastation. "Moving back will be far easier than moving here," Circuit Executive Gregory Nussel said Friday. "The streets aren't flooded, there are no rioters and we won't have to have armed guards in the trucks and things like that." The court originally had planned to move to Baton Rouge as an intermediate step to returning to the John Minor Wisdom Court of Appeals Building in New Orleans, where it has been based since 1891. But Nussel said conditions are stable enough to allow a return to New Orleans, home for the 134 employees who have been using makeshift work spaces in the Bob Casey U.S. Courthouse in downtown Houston. "Everyone wants to return home," Nussel said. "For us to begin rebuilding, we need to return home." The 5th Circuit Court took about 3 weeks to move to Houston in September and was out of business from the day the hurricane hit, Aug. 29, until Sept. 21. Nussel said the court will begin moving back Dec. 16 and will be closed until Jan. 8. Only emergency matters will be handled during that time, he said. "It will be a Herculean effort to return, as well," he said. It also will be expensive. Karen Redmond, spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said the federal courts asked the Congress in September for $69.6 million to cover damage and expenses from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They are still awaiting an answer, she said. (source: Houston Chronicle) CALIFORNIA: Redemption: A Perspective by Stanley "Tookie" Williams Activists fight for clemency for December 13 execution date for peace leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams (FinalCall.com News, 11-19-2005) [Note: The following guest perspective by Stanley "Tookie" Williams" was originally published by FinalCall.com News on March 13, 2001]. To say the least, I am a controversial figure with an unenviable gang legacy (Crips co-founder) that will forever haunt me. Thus, it was highly improbable that I, a Black man on San Quentins death row, would overcome egregious odds to radically transform my life, author nine childrens books, create a viable program for youth (the Internet Project for Street Peace, an international peer mentoring and violence prevention effort), meet Winnie Mandela, gain worldwide recognition and be nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. For nearly 20 years I have been pitted against the morbid mind-set of certain unethical prison officials and their confidential informants. On the other hand, I spent half of those 20 years functioning in a predictable pattern of negative behavior. Throughout that first decade on death row, I was a quasi-slave to the prison conditions that dictated how I should think, act and survive. Being a "condemned" man, I was expected to languish, unchanged, in the silent misery of the doomed. However, from 1988 to 1994, while in solitary confinement, I learned how to battle my hypocritical conscience, gang mentality and personal demons. I underwent many years of soul-searching and re-education, without "debriefing" (another word for "snitching"), without a broken spirit and without violating my moral convictions. By 1993, I had rediscovered my humanity through the knowledge of God, culture and self, which became the "natural elements" for reshaping my life. I had become a man of principle and accountability, and a servant of God. For me, it was both a spiritual blessing and therapy for my soul to meditate on the teachings of the Quran, Metu Neter, the Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible and other uplifting literature. I became culturally conscious through the literary instructions of Cheikh Diop, Dr. Yosef S. Jochanna, Ivan V. Sertima, John H. Clarke, Jacob Carruthers and other Black historians. I even began to tackle topics such as politics, religion, law, math, psychology, philosophy, economics, leadership and others. I have been disciplinary-free for over seven years. Still, prison officials continually challenge the merits of my positive transition; behind these walls, I remain the "whipping boy" for an unforgivable gang past. Hence, the public vilification of me launched by San Quentins spokesman, Vernell Crittendon. In a previous Final Call article dated December 26, 2000, the spokesman had stated, "We have many independent sources, the last as early as June, 2000, which indicated that he (Stanley Williams) is still involved with the Crips." Apparently, Crittendon has selective amnesia. I appealed the bogus June 2000 allegations through the inmate appeal process - and won. A copy of the document confirming that fact was mailed to The Final Call. San Quentin was somewhat tactful in hand-picking Crittendon, a Black man who was opportunistic enough to fabricate and deny his own conscience. But for Crittendon to rely upon his Blackness to project validity on his now-discredited statements made against me, will not work. Crittendon should really be ashamed of himself. Needless to say, my nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize has been opposed by a few vulturous journalists, victim rights groups, death penalty proponents, law enforcement groups and other self-imposed opposition. The focal point continues to elude their train of thought. Obviously, the nomination is not for my gang past, but for the present Internet Project for Street Peace work that I initiated from a death row cell and for the nine anti-gang and anti-violence books for schools and libraries that I have authored. Nonetheless, I have been called an unrepentant sinner, a moral coward, criminal beast, serial killer and a Fox News network reporter even compared me to Adolph Hitler. My belief is that such ungodliness in the judgment of me is the toxic product of American racism. A Black man is not supposed to be capable of redeeming himself. People tend to forget the transitions of Saul, who became Paul, Moses, King David and Saint Aurelius Augustine, who was not always saintly, given the boy he sired by a mistress. Another controversial transformation was Alfred Nobel, himself, who invented dynamite and, ultimately, created the Nobel Peace Prize. A newspaper mistakenly printed Alfred Nobels obituary instead of his dead brothers: the headline accused Alfred Nobel of earning his wealth through an invention (dynamite) that countless people had used to kill one another. The misprint served as a premonition for Alfred Nobel, allowing him to see how the world would judge him. It provoked his transition. Yet, my detractors contend that it is inconceivable that I could reorient my life. Back in the day, I was devoted to building a Crip nation at the expense of other Black people. Today, my life is dedicated to building unity among youths, to promoting youth programs, computer literacy and youth empowerment, and to developing an initiative for a broad-based progressive agenda for youth throughout the world. In fact, I hold out, here and now, an olive branch to those of you who desire to unite in peaceful solidarity to reverse the cycle of self-destructive madness afflicting too many of our people, Black people, young and old alike. Please contact me through my web site, http://www.tookie.com. In conclusion, I realize that the process of "self-transition" begins and ends with the determination of my faith. Indeed, the value of my transition cannot be determined by the perception of what people think I am, but rather by the ethics of my deeds. Thank you Final Call for affording me the opportunity to unchain the truth in my own words. Amani (peace). (source: The FinalCall) ******************* BELIEFS----Has Founder of Crips Earned Right to Live? As execution date nears, religious leaders debate the issues of redemption and retribution. Day and night, a cadre of the condemned - 3,500 men and 54 women - await their fate in U.S. prisons on death row. But the life of a single convict scheduled to die by lethal injection at California's San Quentin prison Dec. 13 - Stanley Tookie Williams - has reignited a passionate debate among people of faith over accountability and punishment, forgiveness and redemption. "There's a grass-roots buzz about it. There are a lot of people talking about it because of who he was here in Los Angeles," said Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, a large, predominantly African American congregation. Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Buddhist clerics and scholars said this week that the Williams case was fraught with ethical and moral implications. How does a society weigh the lives of the 4 murder victims against the life of a convicted murderer who is said to have genuinely reformed? How are accountability and forgiveness balanced? Even within religions, believers may disagree. Williams, 51, co-founded the Crips street gang. He was convicted of the brutal gun murders of four people in 1979 during two Los Angeles robberies. But after nearly 25 years behind bars, Williams has become for many an icon of redemption. He has written 10 children's books imploring youths to stay out of gangs. He has helped mediate gang treaties. His life became the subject of a made-for-television movie, "Redemption," starring actor Jamie Foxx. Williams continues to profess his innocence. The cover story in last week's Los Angeles Jewish Journal carried the headline, "Should Tookie Die?" Across the state, placard-carrying demonstrators, including interfaith groups, have implored Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency - in this case life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Challenging that stance, California law enforcement officials are calling on Schwarzenegger to allow the execution. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley decried Williams as a "cold-blooded killer." Proponents of the death penalty say that Williams' efforts at mending his life, while laudable, cannot overcome the debt owed for taking lives. "Principally, from a conservative biblical approach, if you shed man's blood, by man your blood should be shed," said Kevin Lewis, assistant professor of theology and law at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in La Mirada. Lewis said that if the governor granted clemency, society would be, under the concept of retributive justice, bearing the consequences of the crime itself. He doesn't think it should be allowed in this case. Even if Williams' attempts at rehabilitation are genuine, "they would still not outweigh 4 intentional murders," Lewis argued. Lewis' views are at odds with the positions of many American religious leaders, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the heads of mainline Protestant churches and a number of Jewish and Islamic scholars. Last week, for example, U.S. Catholic bishops strongly reaffirmed their church's opposition to the death penalty. "It is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life," the bishops said. They listed four reasons: Capital punishment violates respect for human life and dignity. State executions "in our names diminishes all of us." As it is applied, capital punishment is "deeply flawed and can be irreversibly wrong" and is biased by race, region and the quality of attorneys. Society can be protected by other means, such as life imprisonment without parole. In weighing decisions of life and death, the notion of repentance figures prominently in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Repentance is more than saying "sorry." It is radically turning from old and harmful ways. That is a problem in Williams' case. Earlier this week, Williams refused to apologize for murders he said he did not commit. That, said Rabbi Elliott Dorff, professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism, is vexing. To be restored, he said, one has to admit to something wrong. "The fact that he denies he is guilty frankly is a problem from the point of view of trying to apply the [Jewish] laws of t'shuvah" restoration or turning from wrong to right "to this case," Dorff said. Nonetheless, Dorff said Williams' good acts since he was imprisoned would be reason to substitute life imprisonment for death. Daniel Sokatch, executive director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance and a member of an interfaith coalition to spare Williams' life, spoke of the Jewish tradition of nekudah tovah a point of pure goodness. "Everyone is created in the image of God and thus endowed with a divine spark. That divine spark is unique and renders each human being inestimably precious. It also provides the opportunity for people to make t'shuvah, to redeem themselves, to turn away from wrongdoing and to do good," he said. "No one said they shouldn't be held accountable and shouldn't pay the price," he said. Life imprisonment would fill that requirement. "Even if he is guilty of the crime - given what he's done for the last quarter-century in redeeming his life and trying to repair the society that he so damaged, don't we as Jews need to recognize that he is a living and breathing example of the power of t'shuvah? Do we really want to kill this person who every day does good in the world?" It is a view shared by Fathi Osman, director of the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World at Omar Ibn Khattab Foundation in Los Angeles. If it can be proved that Williams has changed and repented, Osman said, the punishment should not only be reduced but eliminated. In addition, if the families of the victims were to forgive, Islamic law would be against an execution, said Osman, who personally opposes the death penalty. In this case, however, family members devastated by the murders continue to call for Williams' death. What then? "Their wish is not definite," Osman said. "If there are signs and evidence that the person has repented, nobody can punish him, even the judge himself. Repentance means complete forgiveness." Moreover, Osman said that any possibility that an innocent man had been convicted would be enough to stop an execution under Islamic law. The Venerable Wimalasara, a Buddhist monk who follows the Theravada or southern school of Buddhism, said his tradition opposes the death penalty. "We don't accept that penalty actually because we cannot do harm to any kind of being. This is our major principle. In the lay and monk community we observe principles, and the first is not to harm anybody or any being," he said. Imprisonment is punishment enough, he said. Beyond theology, there are streetwise reasons for allowing Williams to live, Bishop Ulmer said. To gang members, Tookie Williams is a hero, Ulmer said. "If he's going to be a hero, let him be a hero as one who turned himself around," Ulmer said. If Williams is executed, Ulmer said, gang members would ask why they should change at all. "Why turn? Maybe it's better for me to spend the rest of my life running than it is to stop, slow down, and turn around," Ulmer said. (source: Los Angeles Times) ********************* Prison campaigns for execution of gang co-founder----Spokesman: 'I just don't know that his heart is changed' As murderer and Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams tries to stave off execution next month, California prison officials have launched an unusual counterattack against the notion that he has redeemed himself behind bars. The Corrections Department earlier this month posted a press release on its Web site about the upcoming execution, detailing Williams' crimes and asserting that he has been a gang leader while on death row at San Quentin Prison. San Quentin spokesman Vernell Crittendon, speaking on behalf of the department, went further in an interview last week, saying he suspects Williams is orchestrating gangland crimes from his cell. "I just don't know that his heart is changed," Crittendon said, adding he has no proof of illegal activity. Williams, 51, has been behind bars since 1979, when he shot and killed four people during 2 robberies in Los Angeles. He has been on death row since 1981 and is set to die by injection December 13 in what could be the biggest death-row cause celebre in California since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978. "They don't have anything because I'm not involved in anything," Williams told The Associated Press from a visiting cage at San Quentin's death row. "This is their way of executing me." He and a childhood friend founded the Crips in 1971 in Los Angeles, and in the years that followed, the gang did battle with its main rival, the Bloods, for territory and control of the drug trade, leaving hundreds dead. Hundreds of offshoots and copycat gangs with thousands of members have emerged across the nation. Williams' supporters contend he has made amends for his crimes, and they are pleading with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare his life. In prison, Williams has gained international acclaim for writing children's books about the dangers of gang life. He has been nominated repeatedly for the Nobel Peace Prize. (In truth, anyone can nominate anyone.) And he has attracted a cadre of celebrity supporters, including Jamie Foxx, who played Williams in a TV movie, "M..A..S..H" actor Mike Farrell and rapper Snoop Dogg, who appeared at a rally Saturday outside the prison. The Los Angeles District Attorney's office urged the governor not to grant clemency, calling his crimes "horrific." "Stanley Williams does not deserve your sympathy, leniency or mercy," the district attorney wrote in a lengthy letter delivered to the governor's office Thursday. It included gruesome details of the murders and bloody pictures of the dead. Williams' supporters called the prison system's allegations ridiculous. "What troubles me about the devaluing of Stan's work and its impact on many low-income youngsters ... is they're saying, 'We don't care if Stanley Tookie Williams could help another 5,000, 10,000 or 100,000 kids,"' said Barbara Becnel, the inmate's spokeswoman. In his 2004 memoir, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption," Williams said that his gangster life ended in 1992, and that he knew prison officials "would try at every turn to discredit me." State Sen. Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, called the Correction Department's allegations an effort to malign Williams and an abuse of power. "I do see it as a very serious offense and one that is intended to help the governor make up his mind," she said. Schwarzenegger, who has not spared anyone's life on death row, has not said whether he will schedule a clemency hearing. On its Web site, the Correction Department said of Williams: "By 1994, having firmly entrenched himself as the leader of the Crips at San Quentin, he wielded his power as his lieutenants and other minions were dispatched to carry out his objectives." The paragraph was removed a day after it was posted following a call from The Associated Press. Daniel Vasquez, who was warden at San Quentin from 1983 to 1993 and wrote a letter supporting clemency for the last death row inmate executed, said he had never seen such an inflammatory statement in a press release from the prison. "It's like they're trying to drum up business for death row," he said. But Crittendon, who has worked at the prison nearly 30 years and regularly deals with Williams, said Williams has refused to formally renounce his gang membership and submit to "debriefing" -- that is, inform on his old friends. Crittendon also cited Williams' willingness to share an exercise yard with Crips and his unusually large prison bank account. And he said Williams' younger son is a trouble-making Crips member in prison for murder. "A con always will say one thing to you while the whole time he has another agenda," the San Quentin spokesman said. "I'm concerned that possibly this marketing that's going on ... leads the public to hear the words, but not to see that sleight of hand." In August 2004, a committee of prison officials noted Williams' prior gang activity but said it had not seen any recent gang involvement, according to a report cited by Becnel. The committee commended Williams for his positive steps in the past 10 years. In his book, Williams addressed nearly all of Crittendon's accusations, saying that informing on gang members would "rip my dignity out of my chest," that he gets along with everyone in the yard, and that his son is trying to change his ways. As for his bank account, Crittendon said that while other high-profile inmates such as Scott Peterson usually get $10 or $20 checks, Williams receives checks for $500 or $1,000 at a time. But Becnel said people who appreciate Williams' work send him money. (source: CNN) ******************* Execution Set for Inmate Who Hired a Hit Man An execution date was set Friday for a Fresno crime ring leader who ordered killings from Folsom State Prison while serving time for murder. Clarence Ray Allen, 75, is to die Jan. 17 by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison. The U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear his final legal challenge 25 years after a hit man he hired murdered 3 people at a Fresno market. Allen had the trio killed because he feared they would hurt his murder appeal. The inmate suffered a heart attack in September, underwent surgery and is recovering. (source: Los Angeles Times) PENNSYLVANIA: South Phila. man cleared in slaying Harold C. Wilson had spent 16 years on death row. He was freed after a retrial. A prosecutor was livid. A 47-year-old South Philadelphia man who spent 16 years on death row in a triple slaying has been released from prison after a jury acquitted him in a new trial. Harold C. Wilson had always denied that he killed two women and a man with an ax inside a drug house in 1988. He wept when Common Pleas Court jurors announced their decision Tuesday. Yesterday, however, Edward McCann, chief of the District Attorney's Office homicide unit, said that he was "deeply disappointed with the verdict." During the 2-week trial, Wilson's attorneys presented the results of new DNA testing - unavailable when Wilson was convicted in 1989 - to argue that he was not involved in the murders. But McCann said the DNA did not prove Wilson's innocence. "This is not a whodunit. It's absolute nonsense that DNA exculpated this guy," he said. Much of the original blood evidence in the case was consumed by laboratory testing, meaning that less genetic material was available for new DNA examination, McCann said. He said that he still believes "there's no doubt that this guy did this," but that the case was difficult to reconstruct because more than 17 years had elapsed since the crime and some witnesses had died. Wilson was represented by the Philadelphia Defender Association, and yesterday First Assistant Defender Charles Cunningham issued a statement: "The only proper place to try a criminal case is in a court of law. This case was fairly tried in a courtroom before a jury who heard the evidence, and we believe the jury's verdict was correct. Needless to say, we strenuously disagree with the statements of the prosecution." Assistant Defenders Marc Bookman and Karl Schwartz, who tried the case before the jury, declined to comment yesterday, as is their custom. Wilson was arrested the day after the April 10, 1988, slayings of Dorothy Sewell, 64; her nephew, Tyrone Mason, 33; and Mason's girlfriend, Cynthia Goines Mills, 40. The three were hacked to death with a carpenter's ax inside Sewell's home in the 1500 block of South Stillman Street. Wilson told investigators he had used drugs in the house but denied any involvement in the crime. At his 1989 trial, police testified that they found a jacket spattered with the victims' blood in the basement of Wilson's Dickinson Street home. He was convicted of 3 counts of 1st-degree murder and sentenced to death. 2 years ago, Wilson was granted a new trial because black jurors were improperly stricken from the jury weighing his case. DNA testing was performed on the jacket earlier this year, and Wilson's blood was excluded as a source. In addition, blood from an unknown source was discovered. During the retrial this month, the defense attorneys argued that the unknown blood source was the killer - not Wilson. They also argued that the jacket was too small to belong to Wilson, and that police crime scene inventories never documented whether the jacket was found at Wilson's home, as detectives claimed, or the scene of the killings. Wilson did not testify during either trial. But in an attempt to convince the jury to spare his life in 1989, Wilson told jurors that he found the bodies while he was high on drugs and tried to remove an ice pick from Mason's chest, thus explaining the blood spots on his jacket. (source: Philadelphia Inquirer) USA: VICTIMS STATEMENT ON 1000TH EXECUTION Renny Cushing Writes: Dear Friends, Sadly, it is likely that within the next two weeks the 1000th execution since the 1977 resumption of executions in the United States will take place. As this country marks that solemn occasion of a thousand violations of human rights, a thousand caskets filled from ritual killings carried out by government employees, it is important that the public to hear the voices of opposition to the death penalty. One group of people with a stake in our criminal justice system and the moral authority to speak on the matter of capital punishment are survivors of homicide victims. Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights and The Journey of Hope...From Violence to Healing, two organizations whose members include such victims, have on behalf of family members of homicide victims opposed to the death penalty issued a joint statement on the 1000th execution calling for an end to capital punishment. The statement is here and can also (soon) be found on the web at and Please forward (and use) this statement. Renny Cushing, Executive Director Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights *** (source: Murder Victims Families for Human Rights and The Journey of Hope....From Violence to Healing on the 1000th Execution) ********************* Death penalty support falls as toll nears 1,000 Rovin Lovitt used scissors to stab Clayton Dicks to death when the pool hall attendant blundered onto the scene of an after-hours till robbery. Daryl Mack strangled Betty May in her home in Reno. Neither case would merit much attention in a country that has more than 16,000 violent deaths a year. But one of these two is likely to become the thousandth convicted killer executed since the US reintroduced the death penalty in 1976. The US is fourth in the world league for executions, behind China, Iran and Vietnam, although last years tally of 120 men and five women sentenced to death is the lowest yet. The murder rate was also the lowest for 40 years. Michael Rushford, president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said that this was because "we have been giving this problem the right medicine." But public support for the death penalty has slipped from 80 % in 1994 to 64 %, according to Gallup, and 2005 is likely to be the 4th year in a row that the number of executions has fallen. Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, said: "Juries are more hesitant to give the death penalty . . . in 1995 there were 327 people sentenced to death and last year there were 125, a 60 % difference." The reluctance of juries may have something to do with the fact that 122 people have been released from death row after new evidence or a retrial. Mr Dieter believes that another significant factor was the option of a sentence of life without parole. He said: "Juries prefer that option if there is a lingering doubt about the crime." Even in Texas, where 352 prisoners have been put to death, the pace has slowed markedly, with 20 executions likely this year compared with a high of 40 in 2000. It may decline further when the state becomes one of the last to adopt the sentence of life without parole in September. But the pro-death penalty lobby remains vocal. Steven Stewart, prosecuting attorney in Clark County, Indiana, argues that life without parole could be a get-out-of-jail card once states start picking up the bill for caring for geriatric murderers. He also said that life without parole did not eliminate the risk that the prisoner would murder a guard, a visitor or another inmate and "we should not be compelled to take that risk. It is also not unheard of for inmates to escape." He added that those sentenced to life imprisonment served, on average, less than eight years in prison and "it is a good bet that life without parole will not have the meaning intended as years go by." Pressure against executions has also increased from some churches. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a strong statement this week calling for them to end. Almost all US executions are by lethal injection after the phasing out of the firing squad, gas chamber and electric chair, unless specifically requested. Lovitts lethal injection is scheduled for November 30 in Virginia and Daryl Mack's the next day in Nevada. (source: The (UK) Times)
