Nov. 17
CALIFORNIA:
CALLing out "Tookie" Williams
The Crips have earned the dubious distinction as America's most publicized
and successful street gang. Once a dysfunctional purse-snatching outfit
based in south-central Los Angeles, the notorious group now operates in 42
states. While their founder, Stanley "Tookie" Williams, awaits his
execution, the recently formed UW-Madison organization Coalition Against
Legal Lynching seeks to reverse his sentence.
This past Monday night, you may have passed several students, each holding
a candle while enduring the freezing rain in front of Memorial Library.
CALL, according to member Laura Nelson, is a subchapter of the nationwide
campaign to end the death penalty. On the October bus ride from Madison to
the Million More March in Washington, DC, Laura recalled the film
chronicling "Tookie's" life, "Redemption," as CALLs inspiration.
"There were some people on the bus who were floored by that movie," Nelson
said.
Williams 9 childrens books, written during his incarceration, have
garnered Nobel Peace Prize nominations, while his proponents boast his
work with troubled teens has saved roughly 150,000 lives.
Of course, if we entertain this ridiculous figure, we must hold Mr.
Williams responsible for all the vicious and deviant behavior he one time
glamorized - every ounce of crack ever trafficked and each bystander shot
during a turf war.
I'm surprised our current president doesnt consider him a domestic
terrorist.
"Everyone - politicians, doctors, lawyers - is held accountable for their
past," argued Detective George Chavez of the Madison Police Department,
who examines gang related crimes. "'Tookie' Williams was imprisoned and
sentenced based on his past."
But it's the CALL's name, not their poster boy choice, which is most
troubling. Lynching was arguably the most heinous crime perpetrated by our
racial majority, so despicable that the term "lynch mob" has faded from
our vernacular. These acts of hatred were mourned and memorialized by
Billie Holiday in her unsettling rendition of "Strange Fruit."
For a student organization to marginalize the significance of this term by
drawing a parallel to the sentencing of a murderer is deplorable. Arent
there any elderly black or white individuals who themselves witnessed that
"strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees," who are offended by this?
Is CALL really equating "Tookie" Williams' fate to the killing of Emmett
Till?
I oppose capital punishment and agree there is injustice spawned out of
racial and economic disparity. But if you'll excuse my callousness, a
candlelit vigil held in our Midwestern drizzle isn't equivalent to
enacting the Emancipation Proclamation, nor will it motivate Arnold
Schwarzenegger to grant Tookies Golden State clemency. To think it might,
and for it to be endorsed by Mayor Cieslewicz, is not only a waste of
time, but the height of pomposity.
Court-defined justice, in the absence of extraordinary, contradictory
evidence (which, in "Tookie's" case, the US Supreme Court couldnt find),
is paramount over a jail-cell character transformation, and I still trust
the verdict of the American legal system, with all its flaws and
blemishes, far more than I do the repentance of a self-stylized, former
street "general."
And just as it doesnt take any courage to condemn a convicted felon, it
doesnt require any sincerity to apologize in the face of death.
(source: Dan ITierney, The Daily Cardinal)
****************
Schools in California and Across the Nation are Holding 'Teach Ins' to
Support Stanley Tookie Williams Clemency
Schools and after school youth programs in California and across the
nation are conducting "Teach Ins" in support of clemency for Stanley
Tookie Williams.
The "Teach Ins" have already started and will be held through the middle
of December. Events will continue through the middle of December. Students
will discuss issues such as gangs, peer pressure, rehabilitation, civic
responsibility and the death penalty. Organizers expect well over 1,000
students to participate.
Dr. Renee Garrick, the Area Instruction Specialist for Area 14 of Chicago
Public Schools, who has been doing "Teach Ins" using Stanley Williams'
books since last spring said that: "Stanley, having walked this path,
understands the children in a way that others cannot. Stanley has
dedicated his life to making sure the children do not follow a path to
street gangs or violence. Children and their parents gravitate to his
work, it is a unique and powerful source influencing children to make
appropriate choices."
Background
Stanley Williams was one of the founders of the Crips street gang. He was
convicted of 4 murders in 1981, and has been on death row at San Quentin
for the past 24 years. He has always maintained his innocence of these
crimes.
Stanley Williams is scheduled to be executed by the State of California on
December 13, 2005 and is now seeking clemency from Governor
Schwarzenegger.
While on death row, Stanley Williams has undergone a personal redemption.
He has openly apologized for his role in forming the Crips and his actions
as a gang member, and become a prominent anti-gang spokesman. He has
written a series of anti-gang books for children, promoted gang truces,
and given numerous talks to at-risk youth about the power of education,
self-discipline and peace. He has received thousands of emails from
individuals personally influenced by this message. As a result of his work
while on death row, Stanley has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
and for the Nobel Prize in Literature. This year, he received the
President's Call to Service Award.
For a copy of the clemency petition filed with Governor Schwarzenegger,
and for additional information, please see:
http://www.cm-p.com/clemency.htm or http://www.tookie.com/.
Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP is clemency counsel for Stanley
Williams.
[source-- Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP Web Site:
http://www.cm-p.com/clemency.htm http://www.tookie.com]
(source: PRNewswire)
*************************
California's life-and-death politics
HERE'S CALIFORNIA, a state so blue they could name a Crayon after it -
Left Coast Azure. And yet, next month, the Big Blue Golden State plans to
put a man to death.
California, your red is showing.
It's true that Republicans here can't prosper without pledging to be as
eco-green as a can of baby peas, but most Democrats - even that metric
standard of liberalism, Barbara Boxer - can't advocate emptying death row
and still hold on to office.
Most of the other big blue states don't have a death penalty, or don't use
it. Massachusetts, still a little freaked over those witch trials, hasn't
put anyone to death since 1947. New York, first to use the electric chair,
hasn't sent anyone to the hot seat since the Beatles were just some
British band.
It's the old slave states and cowboy states - the South and the West -
that still kill in the name of the law, by noose and by needle, by
voltage, by gas and by gun. Out in the Wild Blue West of California, the
pol who defies that has risked term-limiting himself out of a job.
Pat Brown, Democratic governor, let 35 condemned men die and spared 17
others. But he never got his political groove back after staying the
execution of sex bandit Caryl Chessman at the behest of his son, the
future governor, Jerry Brown. Chessman, who had killed no one, went to the
gas chamber anyway because neither the Legislature nor the state Supreme
Court would back a death-penalty moratorium or clemency.
Brown soon earned himself the nickname "tower of jelly." He got booed at
the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley and at what was then Candlestick
Park in his own hometown. And in 1966, he got beaten to a jelly by Ronald
Reagan.
Rose Bird, appointed as the state's chief justice by Jerry Brown, tried to
red light every death penalty case that came before her. She got recalled
for her trouble. Her head, with its bouncing Shirley Temple curls, has
been waved around on a pike ever since as a warning to uppity jurists.
And California was the burial ground for presidential candidate Mike
Dukakis, all because of the death penalty. At UCLA in 1988, debating
George H.W. Bush, he inflicted capital punishment on himself. Reporter
Bernard Shaw asked Dukakis if he'd favor the death penalty for someone who
raped and murdered his wife.
"No, I don't, Bernard," Dukakis said, and driveled off into some sterile
technocratic response.
The right answer was: "Bernie, I'd like to track down the creep myself and
strangle him with his own testicles, but that's why we're a nation of laws
and not of men." California HAS the most populous death row in the nation,
but not the busiest. Since 1992, only 11 men have been executed - mostly
plain-wrap killers whose deaths have raised neither eyebrows nor much
sympathy.
Pete Wilson's first dead-man-walking was Robert Alton Harris, a white man
who slaughtered 2 boys, then coolly and memorably ate their fast-food
burgers. Gray Davis' first was a Thai man who stabbed and strangled a
clerk and the owner of a store where he had worked. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's was a white drug dealer with three killings to his name.
Next up, after 24 years on death row, is Stanley Williams - "Tookie"
Williams - a black man, co-founder of the Crips, as bad as they come, but
a changed man by some accounts. He's the author of books and a website
warning kids away from the low life. In 2001, some Swiss legislators
nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Putting him to death on Dec. 13
will reinvigorate the protests that black men get raw deals - that being a
changed man in prison changes nothing.
The governor will come down from his China-trip buzz next week, back to a
state that just told him what he could do with his special election. What
he decides about Tookie Williams could lay the path for the rest of his
governorship.
His easiest course is to let Williams die. That would placate the state's
broad law-and-order voting base. Williams' Crips are a nationwide
franchise in social poison; can a few books really atone for that? The
votes Schwarzenegger could lose over it probably wouldn't be his anyway.
Or he could do the heaviest lifting in his muscleman-actor-governor career
by picking up a pen and signing a piece of paper converting death to life
in prison.
Last January, he threw into reverse nearly 30 years of state penal policy
when he added "rehabilitation" to the prison system's name and mission.
"The purpose of corrections," Schwarzenegger has said more than once,
"should be to correct."
He's said he could spare a life, if the right case presented itself.
He could do it this time because no one questions his toughness - he has
already executed one man. He could do it to show his faith in the
rehabilitation standard he set forth.
And he could do it because the death penalty is inefficient, inconsistent,
unfair, backward, time-consuming and absurdly expensive - all those things
that America and especially California, red or blue, are not supposed to
be.
(source: Los Angeles Times)
USA:
Catholic bishops back campaign to end US death penalty
Catholic bishops in the US have emphatically endorsed a campaign to end
the use of the death penalty in America, saying that the country cannot
"teach that killing is wrong by killing those who kill."
At their meeting in Washington this week, bishops debated an 11-page
statement on capital punishment, which won overwhelming approval from the
conference members.
The document, which was developed by the USCCB Domestic Policy Committee
with the support of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities and the Committee
on Doctrine, is the 1st comprehensive statement focused on the death
penalty by the Catholic bishops of the United States in 25 years.
In it the bishops say that it is "time for our nation to abandon the
illusion that we can protect life by taking life." Citing what they see as
a growing national movement to abolish the death penalty, the bishops also
announced the organization of a new initiative, the Catholic Campaign to
End the Use of the Death Penalty.
A statement entitled; "A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death"
approved by a vote of 237 - 4, suggests that the use of the death penalty
contributes to a cycle of violence that must be broken. "The sanction of
death violates respect for human life and dignity" it says.
The statement describes the death penalty as a continuing sign of a
"culture of death" in US society. "It is time for our nation to abandon
the illusion that we can protect life by taking life."
"When the state, in our names and with our taxes, ends a human life
despite having non-lethal alternatives, it suggests that society can
overcome violence with violence. The use of the death penalty ought to be
abandoned not only for what it does to those who are executed, but what it
does to all of society."
A number of churches in the US have committed themselves to opposing the
death penalty including the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, The
World Council of Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian
Church, the Episcopal Church, and the eastern orthodox churches.
At the end of 2003 Pope John Paul II added his voice to support the
renewal of the international campaign against the death penalty.
Previously, in a visit to St Louis in 1999, Pope John Paul II said: "The
new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally
pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of life in
every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the
dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of
someone who has done great evil. I renew the appeal I made for a consensus
to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."
The new statement from the bishops of the United States also acknowledges
that more must be done to assist victims of violence and loss.
The Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty urges Catholics
to pray for victims of crime and their families as well as those on death
row and the prison officials who watch over them; to reach out to families
who have lost loved ones through violence; to learn more about the
Church's teaching on the death penalty; to educate others, especially
through the Church's parishes, schools and other programs; to advocate for
the end of the use of the death penalty in states that have capital
punishment; and to change the debate by emphasizing life over death.
"We don't really expect the use of the death penalty to end in one piece
of sweeping legislation or a stunning court decision, although we're
making significant progress in both legislatures and the courts,"
explained Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, chair of the bishops' Domestic Policy
Committee. "Rather, it will wither away in the daily and individual
choices of prosecutors and legislators, judges and jurors and ordinary
Catholics and others. We believe this day will not come easily, but with
hard work and prayer it will come sooner rather than later."
(source: Ekklesia)
*******************
Death penalty limitations
A proposed bill in the U.S. Congress that would limit the number of
appeals allowed to death row inmates would significantly reduce the time
spent on death row and the associated costs. But this benefit pales in
comparison to the danger of executing the wrongfully convicted, who would
not have as many chances to appeal their sentences under the new law.
Legislators should understand that the death penalty has never proven to
be foolproof, and in fact has never even come close. For all its
accomplishments, the justice system cannot be trusted enough to sentence
men and women to death when there exists the possibility that such a
sentence could be in error.
The state House of Representatives acknowledged this on Tuesday, when it
defeated Gov. Mitt Romney's proposal to allow the death penalty only when
the evidence is heavily weighted against the defendant. The majority of
state legislators agree that regardless of the advances made in the
analysis of DNA evidence, errors still occur.
In 1999 a Northwestern University professor and his journalism students
began studying the case of Anthony Porter, who had been sentenced to death
row for murder. After looking into the case, the professor and his
students discovered that the state of Illinois had committed a terrible
error in convicting Porter. He was exonerated days before he was scheduled
to be killed.
With all due respect to the abilities of a college professor and his
students, if they are capable of revealing deep flaws in the nation's
justice system, it is all too obvious that to create even more room for
error in these cases of life and death would be a great disservice to the
nation.
Congress should decide whether it values a speedier justice system over
the lives of men and women who may have been wrongfully convicted. Aside
from completely abolishing the death penalty, the best way to prevent
innocents from being mistakenly executed is to give them as many
opportunities as possible to appeal their convictions. Unfortunately, this
bill would do exactly the opposite. Until the death penalty is proven
reliable, Congress should recognize that nothing less than the fair
treatment of citizens is at stake, and reject this legislation.
(source: Editorial, The Daily Free Press----Student Newspaper - Boston
University)
********************
Stuck in the Middle----David Kaczynski shares his struggle with turning in
his brother, the Unabomber
Linda Kaczynski felt a nagging pain in her gut when she read pieces of the
Unabomber's Manifesto.
As she read the words explaining the perils and evils of technology from a
man who had sent shrapnel--covered bombs to unsuspecting victims, it
seemed all too familiar.
She sat motionless, and then asked her husband to sit down on the couch.
"Don't get angry at me, but is there any possibility this could be your
brother Ted?" Linda said, clutching a copy of The Washington Post, which
had published the Manifesto.
David Kaczynski, who will remain famous as the brother of the Unabomber,
recalled the conversation between he and his wife to a silent audience
during a lecture Friday in Woodburn Hall. Now executive director of New
Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, David travels the country to share the
story of the day that changed his life, his brother's mental illness and
his hope for changes in the criminal justice system.
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," David said. "I just kept
thinking, 'Why are you saying my brother is a serial killer?'"
Sixteen bombs, 29 injuries, 3 deaths, 17 years.
The Unabomber was one of the most sought after killers during the 1980s
and 1990s, but he was also one of the most elusive. Nobody knew the
identity of the man who terrorized neighborhoods with explosive brown
parcels. Nobody knew the origin of the homemade bombs that exploded,
maimed and even killed his victims.
And it wasn't until the Unabomber demanded newspapers print his 78-page
manifesto that David would begin to piece together the truth.
For weeks David spent his hours after work researching all he could about
the Unabomber. He remained skeptical that someone of his own blood could
have been responsible for such violence and hoped through his reading he
could clear his brother as a suspect.
At first, it looked promising. Eyewitness accounts of the Unabomber didn't
describe Ted.
But soon enough, too many coincidences started to stack up.
David learned his brother had worked in Salt Lake City during the time a
bomb exploded there. When the manifesto was finally printed by The
Washington Post, David compared it with old letters his brother had
written him, which were prolific in length and unique in style.
"As I read the first, second and third paragraphs I got this sinking
feeling that it sounded like my brother," David said. "After 3 weeks of
reading, I almost had this feeling that I could hear my brother's voice
reading the manifesto."
One morning, David woke up with "a crushing sense of depression." He said
he knew in his heart that despite what he had hoped, there was a 50-50
chance the Unabomber was his brother, the same older brother who at the
age of 10 constructed a door knob so David could get in and out of the
backyard. He was the same older brother who was a mathematical genius and
entered Harvard at the age of 16.
"Do I really know my brother?" David recalled thinking. "Had I grown up
with an evil person?"
Despite an awful sense of guilt, David made a harrowing phone call that
would end a 17--year search for a killer.
"I knew if we turned Ted in, there was a fair chance he'd be sentenced to
death and executed. What would it be like for me to have my brother's
blood on my hands?" David said. "But I knew we hadn't chosen to be in
these circumstances."
"If we could stop the violence, we needed to do it. We couldn't let anyone
continue doing this, even if it was a family member that was killing the
people."
Then one day, David got the call he had always dreaded. Deep in his mind
there was still a hope the FBI would clear his brother, that it would all
be a big mistake. But when he picked up the phone, David said the voice at
the other end of the line told him words he can clearly remember.
"They said, 'We've done everything to try and clear (Ted), but he's at the
top of our suspect list.'"
Then, David's attention turned to his mother, who had always worried about
Ted.
What would she think? Would she be mad her son turned on his brother?
After explaining everything to his mother, David fearfully waited in
deafening silence for his mother's response.
"I'll never forget what Mom did that day. She got up out of her chair,
walked up to me and put a kiss on my cheek," David said. "She said, 'I
can't imagine what you've been struggling with, David. I know that you
love your brother and you wouldn't have done this unless you thought you
had to.'"
Defining Moments
One week later, on April 3, 1996, Ted was arrested at his remote cabin
outside Lincoln, Mont. With a scraggly beard and messy hair, Ted was led
out of the cabin by police and gave the world the first glance of a man
who had been splattered across newspapers and news broadcasts for years.
"He was skin and bones," David said. "He was wearing clothing that was
ripped and torn and it looked like he hadn't bathed in months."
Inside the cabin, police found bomb-making parts, a carbon copy of the
manifesto and another live bomb.
Prior to the arrest, the FBI had promised David that his identity would
remain anonymous. But immediately following the arrest, David recalls
hearing commotion outside as media trucks began to park on the lawn. He
watched CBS News Anchor Dan Rather report that the Unabomber had been
turned in by his brother, who lived in Schenectady, N.Y.
During talks with FBI agents and his lawyer, David asked if it was
possible to not seek the death penalty because of his brother's mental
illness, but he was told no promises could be made.
"I had always been an opponent of the death penalty, but until that day I
never imagined having a personal stake in it," David said. "One day the
death penalty kind of came knocking on my door."
David hoped his brother's mental illness would save him from being
executed, but federal prosecutors hired a forensic psychologist who had
frequently denied claims of mental illness.
In January 1998, the Unabomber trial was halted with a plea bargain. In
exchange for a guilty plea, Ted would not be executed. He would spend the
rest of his life in jail.
Although David had hoped his brother's mental illness would spare him, he
said it was thanks to his brother's lawyers that he is still alive today.
"My brother's life wasn't saved because he was mentally ill or because we
had turned him in," David said. "He had incredibly gifted attorneys."
After the trial ended, David received an unexpected phone call from a
chaplain in Sacramento, Calif., who said the victims' families wanted to
meet with him and his mother. An hour later, David and his mother sat in a
room with 3 women whose family members had died at the hands of the
Unabomber.
In an emotional moment, words escaped David and he broke down crying.
"You know your words can't undo the harm that was done," he said to the
audience in Woodburn Hall.
In an attempt to explain her son's condition, David's frail mother spoke
about Ted's mental illness, but all the women heard were excuses.
"'He knew what he was doing,'" David recalled one of the women saying.
The room froze. Silence and tension filled the room until David's mother
finally erupted in emotion.
"I wish he would have killed me instead of your husband," she said.
When David and his mother left the room, everything had changed. David
donated the $1 million reward for the Unabomber's capture to the families
of victims hurt by his brother's actions. After the meeting, David said he
knew it would take his brother many lifetimes to atone for what he had
done, and nothing he or his family could say or do would bring back the
people Ted had killed.
"I looked into a victim's face," David said. "There is no closure. People
will live with these losses for the rest of their lives."
A new chapter
For a long time, Ted had no idea his brother had been the who turned him
in. In a meeting with his lawyer, he even denied his brother would ever
betray him, until his lawyer presented him a copy of The New York Times
with an article about David.
To this day, Ted still refuses to see his family.
On holidays and special occasions, David sends his brother cards in jail.
His mother writes Ted at least 2 times a month. But the family still
hasn't received a response.
"It's still totally unacceptable what he did," David said. "But that
doesn't mean we don't love him."
Although David knows he will always be known as the brother who turned in
the Unabomber, David hopes to make a difference by taking what he has
learned about the death penalty through his brother's case and educating
others. "My biggest regret is that I didn't know how bad his mental
illness was until it was too late," David said.
Having spoken at several colleges and conferences across the country,
David hopes to help people understand the flaws in the death penalty and
the criminal justice system regardless of their personal opinions.
"Any open-minded, fair-minded person has to have some serious doubt that
all of these people on death row are guilty," David said. "The death
penalty is supposed to be for those who have committed the worst crimes.
There have been 12 innocent people who have been executed across the
country and whether you're for or against the death penalty, that's got to
be a concern."
Criminal justice professor Bill Head had two of his classes attend the
lecture to see up close what the effects of the death penalty are on real
people.
"A lot of people have general notions about the death penalty," he said.
"But to actually be exposed to someone who has had a personal connection
with the issue is really important."
As he tours cities speaking to a wide variety of audiences, David said he
knows it will be difficult to ever have the same relationship with his
brother again.
"I know he said he thinks I did this because I was jealous, jealous of him
and that he was the favorite son," David said.
Although he knows it is unlikely he will ever hear from his brother, he
wishes for one simple request from Ted.
"Mom is 88," David said. "And it would make her life if he just wrote her
back and said he loved her."
(source: Indiana Daily Student)
***********************
Death penalty limitations
A proposed bill in the U.S. Congress that would limit the number of
appeals allowed to death row inmates would significantly reduce the time
spent on death row and the associated costs. But this benefit pales in
comparison to the danger of executing the wrongfully convicted, who would
not have as many chances to appeal their sentences under the new law.
Legislators should understand that the death penalty has never proven to
be foolproof, and in fact has never even come close. For all its
accomplishments, the justice system cannot be trusted enough to sentence
men and women to death when there exists the possibility that such a
sentence could be in error.
The state House of Representatives acknowledged this on Tuesday, when it
defeated Gov. Mitt Romney's proposal to allow the death penalty only when
the evidence is heavily weighted against the defendant. The majority of
state legislators agree that regardless of the advances made in the
analysis of DNA evidence, errors still occur.
In 1999 a Northwestern University professor and his journalism students
began studying the case of Anthony Porter, who had been sentenced to death
row for murder. After looking into the case, the professor and his
students discovered that the state of Illinois had committed a terrible
error in convicting Porter. He was exonerated days before he was scheduled
to be killed.
With all due respect to the abilities of a college professor and his
students, if they are capable of revealing deep flaws in the nation's
justice system, it is all too obvious that to create even more room for
error in these cases of life and death would be a great disservice to the
nation.
Congress should decide whether it values a speedier justice system over
the lives of men and women who may have been wrongfully convicted. Aside
from completely abolishing the death penalty, the best way to prevent
innocents from being mistakenly executed is to give them as many
opportunities as possible to appeal their convictions. Unfortunately, this
bill would do exactly the opposite. Until the death penalty is proven
reliable, Congress should recognize that nothing less than the fair
treatment of citizens is at stake, and reject this legislation.
(source: Editorial, Daily Free Press)
