Nov. 26 FLORIDA----new execution date Clarence Hill has received an execution date for January 12, 2006. His new mailing address: Florida State Prison----7819 N.W.228th Street----Raiford, 32026-1160, Florida. ILLINOIS: Former Death Row Inmate Arrested On Drug Charges In Caseyville He was on death row for murder then exonerated nearly a decade later. Now a Chicago man is back behind bars after a crime in the metro east. Caseyville, Illinois, police say they had no idea a man they arrested on Thanksgiving had such an unusual past along with a stash of drugs. A caller said drugs were being used in a 3rd floor room. This call led Caseyville police to a Motel 6 and a man who was once the subject of a nationwide controversy. Police were soon knocking on the door when Verneal Jimerson answered. Officers reportedly found marijuana and crack cocaine packaged to sell. There was also a loaded .38 caliber handgun. Verneal Jimerson and his wife Angela were arrested following the incident. It wasn't until later police discovered the husband's unusual past. He was the subject of national headlines about his freedom from prison in 1996. Verneal Jimerson was freed after spending nearly a decade waiting to die by electric chair. In 1985, Jimerson and 3 men were convicted of murdering a Chicago couple in 1978. Charges against the 4 were dropped after an independent investigation by The Innocence Project, a group of Chicago students and professors. The group found numerous flaws in the murder and rape case. A witness also recanted her testimony against the 4. In 1996, Cook County, Illinois authorites settled a $36 million dollar lawsuit with Verneal Jimerson and the 3 men originally accused of the 1978 murder. It isn't clear what Jimerson was doing in Caseyville but police say his latest arrest could send him back to prison. Jimerson is being held on a $250,000 bond. (source: KSDK News) WISCONSIN: For them, innocence carries an asterisk The look was easy to see, harder to identify. Was it weariness? Fear? Resignation? That look in the men's eyes was the first thing that struck me while watching "After Innocence." The documentary has piled up the film awards by tracking the lives of several guys after they'd been cleared of crimes. Exonerees, they're called. It's not a term you'll find in many Webster's editions. It's a separate category for those who served time for crimes they didn't do. We can't lump them in with ex-cons. Not when evidence shows they shouldn't have been cons in the first place. We'd like to think they get returned to the pile with the rest of us as normal, everyday citizens. That the moment they pass outside the razor wire, the negatives in their lives cease and the energy returns to their eyes. Sorry, the real world isn't that clean. That's one of the messages the movie smashes home. It opens nationwide in a few months, but I watched it last week at the Wisconsin Historical Society. The showing was hosted by the Wisconsin Innocence Project, which has law students work to find and free wrongfully convicted prisoners. One exoneree complained that prisoners who are paroled - guilty of their crimes - get more help in making the transition to life outside. An innocent man, he got $5.37 and a good-luck handshake. More than time moved on while they were locked up. The little boy who bounced on dad's knee before dad went to prison could now bench-press dad. The trucks one mechanic had worked on developed computer technology in the meantime. A state senator and three exonerees from Wisconsin had a panel discussion after the film. A 4th, the state's most visible exoneree, was otherwise occupied. Yes, while Steven Avery sits charged with a gruesome murder, the panelists are trying to be productive with their freedom. It's been rough at times. You might remember the name Evan Zimmerman. He's the former cop who was cleared earlier this year of committing an Eau Claire County murder.,P> Except no court ruling is binding in people's minds. Hiring officials don't always care to hear the details, just that there was a conviction. In these cases, innocence comes with an asterisk. Zimmerman said some figure, "if the police arrested you, you must be guilty." They even seem to have trouble dropping the label themselves. At one point, Zimmerman referred to "my particular murder," then re-phrased. Murder case, he meant. In Anthony Hicks' mind, the damage was already done. After he was convicted of rape in Wisconsin, he said, classmates tormented his son. The family moved to Houston. They left relatives and an established life behind, but he told me the choice was clear: "Either save the children or be selfish." In the new setting, only a few know what happened. Hicks' family can have a normal life, or "as normal as it's going to get," he said. Since evidence was destroyed after the rape was linked to him, Hicks said, it's doubtful the real rapist will be convicted. That's one reason moderator Larry Marshall said the public remains skeptical of exonerations. On TV, defense lawyers always get their clients off by finding the true culprits. In real courtrooms, that doesn't necessarily happen. Until there's another name to attach to the crime, people are bound to assume the worst. "That's the culture that's been created," said Marshall, a founder of the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University. One of the stranger sights in "After Innocence" is an exoneree pulling out a megaphone in front of a courthouse and telling his story to all in earshot. Mistakenly sitting on death row for 22 years will skew you a bit. If the method was odd, the message was clear. DNA evidence showed the guy hadn't committed a murder, and he wanted the DNA placed in a databank so the killer could be found. That's his life work now, since the old one was thrown permanently off-course. The panelists still have hope for theirs. Christopher Ochoa, cleared in a murder case, is now a law student at Madison. He's considering a career as a prosecutor. "I'm not going to become a lawyer to free all these people," he said. "I'm here to make sure the guilty are really guilty." (source: The Journal-Times) OHIO----impending execution Execution set for man who murdered mother-in-law and stepdaughter The Los Angeles Dodgers were playing the Cincinnati Reds the night John Hicks told his wife he was going to a ball game while she worked the night shift at a downtown bank. Instead, Hicks spent the last of his money getting high on cocaine and, before the night was over, strangled his wife's mother and suffocated her 5-year-old daughter. Hicks, 49, is to be put to death by injection Tuesday for those murders 20 years ago. It will be Ohio's 4th execution this year, and likely the 999th nationally since the United States resumed executions in 1977. "There were times I wanted to see him to ask him why did it, but I never did," said Hicks' sister-in-law, Pamara Hughes, who plans to witness the execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. Her sister Ghitana, who was married to Hicks, deals with her memories by refusing to talk about them and will not see Hicks die, Hughes said. "My sister lost her mother, her husband and her child all in 1 night," Hughes said. "When they set the execution date, she told me she can't do it. I took it upon myself. I said I would be there the day he died. I'm going to end this chapter; we won't have to worry about it anymore." After a brief trial, Hicks, 49, was convicted of the Aug. 2, 1985, murders of Maxine Armstrong, 56, and his stepdaughter, Brandy Green. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for Armstrong's killing and 10 to 25 years for aggravated robbery, and was given the death penalty for killing Brandy. He never denied the murders - he apologized for them in court - but has fought to avoid the death penalty. After years of unsuccessful challenges in state courts - Hicks argued ineffective counsel and procedural errors, among other points - the U.S. Supreme Court declined his final appeal in August. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected several arguments by his attorneys a year ago. Hicks killed his mother-in-law and stepdaughter on a Friday night. He fled to Knoxville, Tenn., on Saturday, and on Sunday he walked into a police station there and confessed. Testimony showed that Hicks, a boiler operator at Western Hills High School, was broke after buying cocaine from a man named Raymond. When Hicks craved more, he gave Raymond his mother-in-law's VCR, which his wife had kept in her home, as collateral. Within a few hours, Hicks realized that he would not be able to explain the missing VCR to his wife, so he decided to rob his mother-in-law for money to retrieve it. Hicks went to her apartment, took Brandy from the couch where she was sleeping and put her in Armstrong's bed, then returned to the living room to smoke a cigarette. "I guess I was building up the courage to do it in order to get the money," he told a Knoxville detective. "And right 'bout 11 o'clock or so, I - you know - I just said, 'Well, either you go do it or you don't.'" He walked up behind Armstrong, who was looking at a parakeet in a cage that had been a present for Brandy's 5th birthday, just two days earlier. "When she turned around, I just grabbed her and started strangling her," Hicks told the detective. To make sure Armstrong was dead, Hicks tied a clothesline around her neck. He found about $300 in a bedroom, took that and credit cards and a checkbook and got back the VCR. Then Hicks realized that Brandy could say he was in the apartment when Armstrong was killed, and he decided the girl had to die, too. He went back to the apartment and tried to suffocate Brandy with a pillow. When she struggled, Hicks covered her nose and mouth with duct tape. He briefly attempted to dismember Armstrong to dispose of her body, but abandoned that and went home. In the morning, he was gone. His wife didn't think anything of it, at first, because Hicks often took the car to be washed on Saturday morning. Hughes became concerned when she called her mother at 10 a.m. and got no answer. "I sent my grandmother and aunt to go see what's going on," she said. "They found them. It was so horrible." Hughes is 56, the same age as her mother when she was killed. Her grandmother is 94 and grateful that she lived to know that Hicks would be executed. "She was really scared she wasn't going to live to see it happen," Hughes said. At a hearing Nov. 8, Hicks' brother urged the Ohio Parole Board to recommend clemency. "I know what he did was horrible," Ricardo Hicks said. "I know my brother wouldn't have done this crime if he hadn't been addicted to drugs." Hughes said her family didn't know that Hicks was doing drugs. "I saw my sister and Johnny quite a bit. My children spent the night there," she said. "He was always good to Brandy. My mother was crazy about Johnny. We never suspected he could do a thing like that." She holds no animosity toward Hicks' family. "When his brother was pleading for his life, that's what he had to do," Hughes said. "They have to. They're family. "I have sympathy for the family of Mr. Hicks, but I think it's time the state of Ohio carry out his execution. I have waited 20 years for justice to be done." The Parole Board recommended that Gov. Bob Taft not grant clemency. Ohio has executed 18 men since resuming the death penalty in 1999. (source: Associated Press) *************** Murder convicts may get new trial----Supreme court set to hear case surrounding '88 rape, death of Randolph victim For more than 3 years, they have waited for the new trials that a Portage County court decision said they deserved. Now those trials may be closer than ever for Randy Resh and Bob Gondor, who were convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of 31-year-old Connie Nardi of Randolph Township. The Ohio Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments for Jan. 25 in the bizarre case, and attorneys for both men say they are confident of winning after repeated delays and setbacks. Resh's lawyer, James D. Owen of Columbus, said he thinks the high court took the case "because a lot of people believe it's important for those who are victims of a miscarriage of justice to have some avenue to address that, and if there isn't an avenue to address it, then the public is going to lose faith in the justice system." By a 4-3 vote in May, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case after the 11th District Court of Appeals blocked new trials in a split decision early this year. "The fact that 4 justices wanted to hear the case really makes me optimistic," Owen said. Evidence showing the original jury verdicts were unworthy of confidence, according to a judge's post-conviction ruling, first arose on June 14, 2002. After hearing 8 days of testimony and evidence, visiting Portage County Judge Charles J. Bannon ruled that Resh and Gondor were denied their constitutional rights to effective counsel because their original lawyers never used many pieces of evidence that could have discredited the prosecution's case. "This court," Bannon wrote in the final paragraph of his 11-page ruling, "is keenly aware of the difficulty in gathering evidence for the presentation of a case to a jury after such a long period of time. Indeed, it has been almost 12 years since the petitioners were tried and sentenced. Administrative convenience, however, can never be grounds for denial of a person's constitutional rights." If the overlooked evidence had been presented to the juries, Bannon said, "there is a reasonable probability that the result of the proceedings would have been different." Thus, he overturned the convictions and ordered new trials. But Bannon's orders were blocked several weeks later in an appeal by Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci to the district court in Warren. And there the case languished for 2 years and 7 months. Finally, on Jan. 3 this year, the 11th District blocked Bannon's orders for a new trial in a 2-to-1 decision. The basis for that opinion -- some 40 pages written by Judge Cynthia Westcott Rice -- was that the jury believed the testimony of the 1st man convicted in the case, Troy Busta of Hiram, took precedence over all else. Faced with the death penalty, Busta never went to trial. Instead, shortly after his mother was caught trying to smuggle a lock-blade knife into the county jail for her son, Busta struck a deal with the state. Avoiding death row, he agreed to a lesser charge, then provided testimony that convicted Resh and Gondor. Although Vigluicci will not say what he will do if the Supreme Court upholds Bannon's order for new trials, he had said previously that he thought Busta's "eye-witness testimony" was the most important factor in convicting Resh and Gondor. However, one of the factors heavily relied upon by Bannon was a 50-page transcript of a taped interview of Busta by his 2 lawyers and their private investigator a month after the 1988 murder. That interview -- never used in the original trials -- contained passages in which Busta initially denied Resh and Gondor were involved. Then, when his story started falling apart under questioning, Busta was asked whether he was willing to go along with what the lead investigator was proposing. According to the interview, Busta answered: "What?" One of the lawyers said: "Setting up." And Busta replied: "I'd do anything I have to do to get myself out of this. I ain't sitting in no chair for somebody else." Dr. Richard J. Ofshe, one of the nation's leading experts in criminal interrogation techniques, testified about the interview in the 2002 hearings before Bannon, calling it "the most shocking passage I've ever seen in any criminal case I've ever worked on." Ofshe said the "setting up" suggestion showed Busta would implicate someone not involved in the murder to satisfy the lead investigator and save himself. Vigluicci had no role in the original police investigations and trials, but he has steadfastly defended the outcomes and his office will now press the case before the state's highest court. Former county Prosecutor David W. Norris handled the original trials but was later discredited in a drug scandal. He resigned from office in September 1994 after pleading guilty to a federal charge of cocaine possession. (source : The Akron Beacon Journal) CALIFORNIA: Gov. to Consider Clemency for Killer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will hold a private hearing at his Sacramento office Dec. 8 to consider whether to grant clemency to convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips street gang. Margita Thompson, the governor's press secretary, said Schwarzenegger's decision to hold the private meeting with lawyers representing Williams and the families of his victims did not indicate which way he was leaning on whether to commute Williams' sentence from death to life in prison without possibility of parole. "The governor reviewed the material in the case this week," Thompson said late Friday. "He decided the best route is a private clemency hearing, so he can hear directly from counsel." Prosecutors are urging that Williams be executed by lethal injection as scheduled on Dec. 13 for the killings of 4 people during robberies in 1979. Williams' lawyers say he should be granted clemency because of his work as an anti-gang activist during his incarceration on death row. Last weekend, a peaceful multiracial crowd including religious leaders and rapper Snoop Dogg jammed a street outside San Quentin Prison to urge that Williams' life be spared. His lawyers have also submitted what they said were signatures of 32,000 people supporting Williams' petition for clemency. Williams, 51, has denied he committed the murders and has asked the California Supreme Court to reopen his case, contending that he was wrongly tied to the crimes through shoddy forensics. The court has not ruled on his petition. The governor decides clemency requests on a case-by-case basis and is not required to hold either public or private hearings on an inmate's request, Thompson said. She said that after thorough study of the materials presented to him, the governor rejected the only 2 previous requests he had received from death row inmates seeking clemency. Last year, Schwarzenegger denied a hearing of any kind for convicted murderer Kevin Cooper. But Cooper's execution was later stayed by a federal appeals court. In January, the governor referred the clemency request of murderer Donald Beardslee to the California Board of Parole Hearings and decided against clemency on the recommendation of the board. Thompson said that under state law, Beardslee's case had to be referred to a public hearing by the board because Beardslee had been convicted of felonies twice previously. Williams had been convicted of a felony once previously, so the governor had the option of a private hearing, a public hearing or no hearing at all, Thompson said. She said he decided that a private hearing was most appropriate. On Wednesday, Williams' attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to grant them access to a broad array of trial evidence in an effort to show that Williams' conviction in the four murders had been unconstitutional. "Discovery must be granted to avoid an egregious miscarriage of justice," Pasadena attorney Verna Wafeld wrote in her request. She is seeking information under a 2003 California law enacted in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart corruption scandal. She said she was looking for ballistic and crime scene evidence, witness records and medical evidence that might show that Williams was forcibly drugged while in jail awaiting trial. In response to an earlier defense motion, Deputy Atty. Gen. Lisa J. Brault said Williams had been provided with appropriate material through the court discovery process. Prosecutors are required to turn over anything that might help a defendant prove his innocence. (source: Los Angeles Times) ******************** State: No delays for inmate----Judges urged to block appeal attempts for Kevin Cooper Proclaiming that "enough is enough," state prosecutors on Friday urged a panel of federal judges to block anymore appeal attempts by death row inmate Kevin Cooper. Lawyers from the state Attorney General's office argued that evidence overwhelmingly proves Cooper guilty of the 1983 hatchet murders of four people in Chino Hills, and they argued that no reasonable judges could possibly conclude otherwise. "To believe Cooper's assertion of innocence, in other words, requires belief in fantasy," they wrote. The scathing new anti-Cooper rhetoric came in a 113-page brief filed Friday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors filed the brief asking the court to reverse a ruling it made last month in which it granted Cooper permission to continue appealing his conviction. Cooper is on death row for the 1983 massacre of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes. All 4 were stabbed and hacked to death inside the Ryen family's hilltop home in Chino Hills shortly after Cooper escaped from the nearby California Institution for Men state prison. The Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua, survived a slashed throat from the attack. Cooper has long proclaimed his innocence and has accused police and prosecutors of framing him for the crimes. He came within hours of being executed in February 2004, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a stay so that further testing could be done on evidence against him. A federal judge in San Diego conducted a year's worth of evidentiary hearings and ordered additional scientific testing before reaffirming Cooper's guilt earlier this year. Cooper then returned to the 9th Circuit court and asked for permission to continue his appeals, claiming he has been the victim of corrupt prosecutors, erroneous legal rulings and bad lawyering. Judges from the panel granted him that permission in October, but said they would reconsider after hearing arguments from state prosecutors. Those arguments were contained in the brief filed Friday. Deputy Attorney Holly Wilkens wrote in the brief that the DNA and other scientific tests that have been conducted on evidence since Cooper's conviction have all confirmed his guilt. She accused Cooper of using delay tactics by demanding series after series of new tests and hearings, and then disavowing the results when they aren't to his liking. "Enough is enough," Wilkens wrote. "Cooper should not be afforded further delay." Cooper's lawyers were not reached for comment late Friday afternoon. They have 30 days to file a legal reply with the court. (source: Inland Valley Daily Bulletin) *********************** Beat the Needle----Saving Tookie Williams THE STATE of California is racing to execute Stan Tookie Williams, its most famous death row prisoner. And in response, people from all walks of life--Hollywood stars, anti-death penalty activists, former gang members, educators and more--are now racing to save his life. On October 24, a California court fast-tracked Stan's execution after the U.S. Supreme Court refused his final appeal. He was given a December 13 execution date--ahead of two other death row prisoners whose last appeals had already been turned down. Stan gained national prominence after his life story was portrayed in Redemption, a TV movie starring actor Jamie Foxx. But for years before Redemption, Stan's anti-gang work had an enormous influence on youth across the U.S. More than 30 years ago, Stan co-founded the Crips gang in Los Angeles. After he was framed for four murders and sentenced to death in 1981, he transformed himself behind bars, writing children's books to discourage kids from joining gangs. He has been nominated for 5 Nobel Prizes, and one of his books won two national honors. Earlier this year, he received a Presidential Call to Service Award from none other than George Bush. The "Tookie Protocol for Peace: A Local Street Peace Initiative" has moved tens of thousands of youth and formed the basis for gang truces in several cities. Some 70,000 people have sent e-mails to the SaveTookie.org Web site to thank Stan for providing them with the inspiration and motivation to leave gang life behind. "So many preachers, politicians and law enforcement officers talk about stopping gang violence, but they don't have any experience of it," Najee Ali, a former gang member-turned-community activist, told a reporter. "But when you have the founder of the most well-known gang in history, it speaks a lot." In recognition of the valuable work Stan continues to do from behind bars, both the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle have printed editorials calling on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency. To put even more pressure on Schwarzenegger, Stan's supporters have called for a November 30 national day of action to hold press conferences, speakouts and rallies. But the November 30 actions are just one part of a multi-faceted campaign to save Stan. On November 19, rapper Snoop Dogg will travel to San Quentin to meet with Stan, and then speak to people gathered outside for a "Save the Peacemaker" rally. On December 4 in San Francisco, actor Danny Glover will host a screening of Redemption to draw attention to the case. And Jamie Foxx, whose birthday is December 13, has said that the only present he wants is clemency to stop the man he portrayed from being killed the same day. "We can't let [this execution] happen," Foxx told a reporter at the premiere of his new film Jarhead. "We've got to do everything we can to get the word out. Do you know they've collected nearly 30,000 signatures so far?" Stan's efforts to encourage kids to steer clear of gangs are reason enough to grant him clemency, but there's much more to this case. The racism of the death penalty and criminal justice system has marked Stan's case from the very beginning. At his trial, Stan was found guilty by an all-white jury after the prosecutor removed all prospective Black jurors from the jury pool--a practice he was warned against by judges on two prior occasions. In his closing argument, the prosecutor compared Stan to a Bengal tiger in the zoo, and described the Black neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles as his jungle "habitat." Yet appellate court judges have dismissed Stan's protests of this racism, claiming it amounted to "harmless error"--in other words, that it was improper and shouldn't have happened, but didn't alter the outcome of the trial. Stan appeared in the sentencing phase of his trial in shackles--a practice that the U.S. Supreme Court has since ruled unconstitutional because it unfairly biases the jury against the defendant. Stan has always maintained his innocence in the murders he was sent to death row for, and last week, his attorney filed a discovery motion that calls into question the only physical evidence linking Stan to the crime. The motion requests the right to reexamine shotgun shells that, according to the sheriff's testimony in Stan's original trial, were fired from a shotgun belonging to Stan. In the motion, a ballistics expert maintains that the sheriff's testimony is based on "junk science at best." The motion also asks for evidence that could prove whether other officers in Stan's trial deliberately lied, and if a prosecution witness, fearing deportation, gave false testimony. Of course, Stan's case is just one of hundreds of California death row cases rife with racism, prosecutorial misconduct and shoddy evidence. Last year, in recognition of the serious problems plaguing the state's criminal justice system, legislators established the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice to figure out the extent to which innocent people have been convicted and even executed. But it wasn't until June of this year that State Assemblyman Paul Koretz and a few other assembly members introduced legislation for a moratorium on executions while the commission carried out its work. This legislation won't be considered until January, giving Schwarzenegger yet another reason to grant clemency to Stan. Schwarzenegger is a Republican, who was recently dealt a political blow by the defeat of several ballot measures he backed in a statewide special election. Pressure from activists can force Schwarzenegger to do the right thing--but only if we're active on all fronts. "We need to fight to allow Stan to live so that he can continue his work and prove his innocence," Barbara Becnel, a journalist and Stan's longtime collaborator, told the Campaign to End the Death Penalty's annual convention in Chicago via speakerphone. "We need to expose the corruption in his case, and let the state, the nation and the world know that the death penalty in this country is not fairly administered. "Blacks being kicked off the jury, the prosecutor using jungle language in his closing, saying that jurors could go to the zoo to see animals like Stan--that is not okay. Racism has been reduced to a 'harmless error'--that's what they say happened in Stan's case and the cases of many, many people on death row. We need to stand up and say that we won't allow racism to be dismissed as a harmless error. "Show up and stand up today--for Stan and for all of us." What you can do to help save Tookie -- Set up an information table about Stan's case. Hand out fact sheets and collect signatures on petitions asking Schwarzenegger to grant clemency. Make cell phones available for people to call the governor's office on the spot. Set up a laptop so that people can e-mail the governor right there and then. Schwarzenegger's phone is 916-445-4633, and his e-mail address is [email protected] -- Hold a press conference with community organizers, campus groups and others involved in the fight for social justice. -- Organize a rally or picket in your city. Call a campus speakout to "save the peacemaker." -- Hold a screening of Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story. -- Organize a teach-in on "The Power of Redemption: The Case of Stan Tookie Williams." Host a former death row prisoner to speak in your city or on your campus. -- Write a letter or story about Stan's case for local or school newspapers, and contact local radio stations to do a segment on Stan. -- Run a signature ad in your school or community paper. -- Organize a spoken word event for Stan, a "Rock for Tookie" concert with local bands to raise funds for Stan's defense, or a mock trial focusing on the injustices of the death penalty. -- Be creative. Come up with your own ideas to get the word out and build support. <>P> For more information about the Save Tookie campaign or to download petitions and fact sheets, visit the Save Tookie and Campaign to End the Death Penalty Web sites. Be sure to send information about the activities you plan to Save Tookie Web site. (source: CounterPunch) ********************** As Execution Date Nears, Gang Founder Stirs Debate----Ex-Crips Leader Has High-Profile Supporters and Detractors Of all the thoughts that might rouse Stanley "Tookie" Williams in the middle of the night, his favorite are "pithies." In case one hits, he keeps a pencil and pad and an Itty Bitty Book Light on the floor by his cot. That way he can hold on to the pithy -- a phrase or line "that just comes" to him -- and use it in one of the two books he is trying hard to finish writing before he is killed. It seems impossible given time and circumstances. From his new quarters, cell No. 1 in the San Quentin death house, he is right by the old gas chamber, where he is scheduled to die by injection on Dec. 13. Pithies cannot compete with that. Williams is probably the most prominent death row prisoner in the country -- co-founder of the Crips gang, convicted of killing four people in 1979 and then nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 5 times in the past five years for his anti-gang work -- so his imminent execution also keeps him busy managing a flood of calls, letters and visits. His death date has prompted one of the most high-profile debates on capital punishment in years. Radio talk shows, newspaper editorials, essays and school term papers are all weighing in on whether Williams should die. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to meet Dec. 8 with Williams's lawyers, Los Angeles County prosecutors and others involved in the case to consider whether to commute Williams's sentence to life in prison. If clemency is granted, Williams will be the 1st condemned person in California to win a reprieve in 38 years. Sitting at an old pine table in a San Quentin visiting cell the other day, Williams seemed remarkably calm and composed. "I just try to do my work," he said, shrugging bodybuilder-big shoulders that nearly burst through his denim shirt. "But being who I am, because of what I've done in my gang past, I guess I've become the subject for people to debate." On one side are those against state killings in principle, those who believe that Williams has redeemed himself with his 10 books urging youths to stay away from gangs, and those who argue that Williams, who has always maintained his innocence, should be allowed to reexamine ballistics and other evidence that might be a basis for a new trial. On the other side are those who say Williams should die because retributive justice -- an eye for an eye -- demands it, not to mention those who don't believe that he has actually reformed. They note that Williams has never owned up to the murders and that while he has achieved fame, his victims have all but been forgotten. As Dec. 13 draws closer, the competing choruses are getting louder. Nearly every day, more prominent entertainers, intellectuals and political leaders step forward to speak out for Williams's life. But California law enforcement officials have launched an offensive. The Los Angeles prosecutor wrote Schwarzenegger to say Williams is "a cold-blooded killer" who helped start a violent gang that continues to terrorize the city. The state attorney general's office said Williams has had 24 years to examine evidence -- it's too late now. A San Quentin spokesman has even suggested that Williams might still be running the Crips from death row, contradicting official prison evaluations. "That reprobative individual is part of a system that wants me to die," Williams said. "But I'm grateful for the Keystone-esque tactics of these people. It shows they're mendacious." At 51 years old, after nearly half his life in San Quentin, Williams bears only the broad outline of his Crips self. More gray than not, he wears round, rimless glasses, a razor-neat beard and pulled-back cornrows. When he turns around, you can see a small ponytail. His speaks softly, dishing out big words like a 5-course meal. Still a big, bad Crip when he entered San Quentin in 1981, Williams spent 6 years in solitary confinement (1988 to 1994). Days in solitary moved like pond water, and Williams had time to make learning a serious pursuit. The dictionary and thesaurus were his favorite "valuable tools." "I started with 10 words a day," he said, "writing the word and its phonetic spelling on one side of a piece of paper, and the definition on the other. Sometimes one word had a whole paragraph of synonyms and meanings. It was a revelation." By 1992, he was ready to apply all his reading to writing. "I wanted to write a Peace Protocol for the gangs," he said, referring to a document that Crips and Bloods have used to hold a truce. "And I wanted to write children's books speaking out against gangs. I knew that once I did that, I would not retrogress. There was no going back to my despicable ways." In 1992, Barbara Becnel, a journalist working on a story on the Crips, persuaded Williams to grant her an interview. She ended up helping him launch his writings, from the Peace Protocol to his "Tookie Speaks Out" series of 9 children's books. His memoir, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption" -- adapted into an FX channel movie, "Redemption," starring Jamie Foxx -- traced their relationship from adversaries to friends and collaborators. Williams has always said he did not commit the crimes -- that his defense was botched; the key witnesses, opportunistic liars facing hard time themselves; and the prosecutors, so intent on nailing the menacing leader of the Crips, that they ignored evidence pointing to others and away from him. "I have never had any faith in the system -- period," he said. "I've never received justice in my entire life." It is not the kind of contrite line his critics would want to hear. But Williams could not help himself. "I believe justice is more of a crapshoot than anything," he said. "Statistics-wise, the majority of individuals who do get justice are white and affluent. If Rodney King's beating hadn't been videotaped, the police would still be saying they never touched him. If I were affluent, I wouldn't be here right now." The thoughts conjure up real regrets, the ones that come from remembering that he took the path of least resistance in his South Central L.A. 'hood: "drugs, crime, violence, stupidity." As a middle-schooler, "I really only wanted to be left alone," he said. But he was puny and ripe for being picked on. "I always hated bullies," he said. So he blew himself up like a cartoon superhero -- 300 pounds on a 5-foot-10 frame -- and wore an afro like Superfly's. Williams co-founded the Crips with his friend Raymond Washington in 1971, when they were 17. The original name, he said, was the Cribs, but it was misspelled during an alcohol binge and "Crips" stuck. In 1979, Williams was arrested in the slaying of Albert Lewis Owens, a 26-year-old clerk at a 7-Eleven store in Pico Rivera who was shot in the head while lying face down on the floor during a robbery. Police said that a few weeks later he killed Tsai-Shai Yang, 63; her husband, Yen-I Yang, 76; and their daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43, during a holdup at their motel in South Los Angeles. A shotgun shell found at the crime scene was said to be from a gun purchased by Williams 5 years earlier, which was under the bed of two associates under investigation for killing their business partner. Their murder charges were dropped after they testified that Williams had confessed to them. Other witnesses included a longtime felon who was placed in a nearby cell while Williams awaited trial. Williams's attorney said that 20 years later, it was discovered that a Los Angeles police officer had left a copy of her client's file in the informant's cell for overnight study. Another witness, who was never called to testify, though he implicated Williams as the shooter in the 7-Eleven robbery, has recanted, the lawyer said. Williams's clemency petition stresses his good works of the past decade or so -- his books, taught in inner-city curricula across the country; his A grade for behavior at San Quentin for the past 13 years; and his following -- the thousands of people who have written to him, the 32,000 people who signed a plea for clemency. Williams said that he wants to keep on working -- writing. The two books he is currently writing -- an anthology of essays on politics, race, crime and punishment, and the latest in his "Tookie Speaks Out" series (this one on girl gang members) -- need attention. So do the letters he receives, sometimes 30 or 40 a day. "The sad part," he said, with a sigh, "is that I couldn't possibly answer all of them individually." Even if he had all the time in the world, he said, "it would take forever." (source: Washington Post) ******************** Debating death row Convicted killer and former gang member Stanley "Tookie" Williams is scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 13. Many are calling for clemency because of the direction Williams' life has taken since he was put behind bars. He has become an anti-gang crusader and has helped craft treatises between gangs. He also maintains his innocence. His story raises this question: At what, if any, point does someone earn redemption and forgiveness for past sins? It is a gruesome irony that our holiday season this year will coincide with the execution of the 1,000th person since the Supreme Court legalized the death penalty 30 years ago. Claims of innocence, religious conversion and good works done while in prison are relevant in parole hearings, but I do not think they are crucial to the capital punishment controversy. People tend to be convinced that either it is just for prisoners to be executed if they murder someone, or it is simply wrong based on religious and humanitarian principles. My support for Stanley Tookie Williams' petition for clemency is based on the latter. In Zen, we view wrongdoing as stemming from ignorance of who we truly are. The Zen Buddhist precepts are not taken literally, but they call for careful awareness about not killing or doing harm. It is our nature to try to do our best, to fall short and cause suffering, to feel sorry for it and to recommit to doing better. In Zen we steer clear of words like "redemption" and "sin." To atone -- to be "at one" -- is accomplished by responding fully to the needs of the present moment. We cannot claim to have a humane and decent society while we put people to death, however horrible their crimes. Many nations have abolished capital punishment. In the U.S., 12 states, including my home state of Iowa, have abolished the death penalty. Williams is one of California's 648 death-row inmates. There have been 11 executions here since 1976 and one in 2005. A life sentence without possibility of parole is one alternative that would be most likely to receive widespread support. The reasons for support of capital punishment bear reexamination. In recent years the public has become aware that the death penalty system is not fail-safe. Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from death row because of evidence proving their innocence. It is also beyond doubt that race and poverty are factors that unjustly influence whether a defendant will receive the death penalty. Those who are concerned about costs and the burden placed on social services should take note of studies showing that the cost of death penalty cases far exceeds the cost of life imprisonment. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported in March of 2005 that the California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the cost of keeping convicts in prison for life. The majority of professional criminologists reject the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The Southern states account for 80% of the executions, yet states in the South have the highest murder rates. Research indicates that whether a perpetrator thinks he can get away with his crime or whether he knows he is very likely to be caught is a more relevant deterrent than the severity of the consequences. Governors are given a broad power to grant clemency. They should not sidestep their duty by claiming they can't interfere with the jury's verdict because it is the will of the people. It is their specific responsibility to give further review to the person and situation, and to choose whether to show mercy. For those who are concerned about reelection as well as conscience, the facts show that since 1993, 15 governors have granted clemency, mostly on humanitarian grounds, and all but one were reelected. Our Zen Center has a prison project. We have found that some inmates are drawn to Zen meditation as a means of transformation as well as a way to live as fully as possible while incarcerated. We have several practitioners who are serving life and double-life sentences. These men can be a positive influence on other prisoners who will be returning to mainstream society. Stanley Tookie Williams seems to be an outstanding example of someone who has been able to make a contribution to society despite his past crimes. There is much to be gained by sparing the lives of those on death row. REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT----Zen Center of Orange County Costa Mesa **** Capital punishment is the only law repeated in all 5 Books of Moses, but the ancient sages of Israel all but precluded its application. Two thousand years of Rabbinic aversion to applying the ultimate sentence have conditioned many Jews to oppose the death penalty. Judaism champions life. Man must not, many claim, declare his own judgments infallible through an irreversible process and trespass on God's prerogative to take life. The maximum sentence an Israeli court may hand down in the case of a Palestinian suicide bomber is life in prison. Still, a substantial Jewish minority supports imposing the death penalty, concluding that the criminal assumed a risk he could have avoided by not committing the crime. Through capital punishment, the offender learns that his fellow men deem him unworthy of living. Society's recognition of his self-imposed degradation is the punitive essence of execution. The logic that life in prison is sufficient punishment eludes me. Allowing murderers to live places an unequal weight on the tragically lost lives of victims and the lives of those who murdered them. Should a murderer be granted a long and sheltered life? Should he rest secure that, no matter how heinous his deed, he will still feel the warmth of the sun, enjoy reading a book, be blessed by the love of family? No number of good deeds or revolution of his spirit can wash the blood from a murderer's hands or bring back his victims. He must be punished for what he actually did then, not rewarded for what he is or appears to be now. Consider that if the criminal is rehabilitated, why should this upstanding citizen be kept behind bars at all? Why isn't he freed to live among us, next door to us and do his good work unfettered? All of the murderer's apologies, spiritual enlightenment and potential to be of benefit to his fellow man is meaningless to those to whom restitution cannot be made and whose futures cannot be restored. He can memorize the Bible; sing hymns morning, noon, and night; kneel until his knees are raw; wear a beatific smile; write children's books; and love his mother and it will not raise the dead out of their graves or mend the blasted lives of those left behind. Imagine if Osama bin Laden was captured and sentenced to die. Suppose that during a lengthy incarceration he renounced his terrorist past and resolved to teach those he once inspired to do evil to now seek the path of peace. What if he could, by example, now elevate the lives of thousands of Muslims from barbarity to civility? Could this compensate for those who leapt to their deaths from the World Trade Center? Should he continue to enjoy the gift and blessing of life? Hardly. It might be asked: What if he has achieved redemption? I would answer: Only God can judge redemption. But can he be forgiven by society? No, forgiveness can be extended only by those he murdered. Why should the life of the murderer be elevated above that of the murdered? It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life. RABBI MARK S. MILLER----Temple Bat Yahm Newport Beach **** We human beings tend to assume that commandments and rules are most basic in this life. "Be good," "do the right things," "love one another" teach us a beautiful order for living, one that respects the rights of others and seeks the well-being of the whole human race. Yet, there is something much more basic that undergirds reality, something that even the commandments depend on for their existence: God's love. We cannot "earn redemption and forgiveness" any more than we can "earn" love. The message isn't a matter of: "Be good and God will love you! Oh, and by the way, God forgives you too." It's a matter of: "God loves you and forgives you. Now, what else needs to be said? How are you going to respond to that?" The only useful response is to take in this surprising reality and let it assume its rightful place at the center of your world. The message of forgiveness says to us: "Get over yourself! Get over your goodness and righteousness if they threaten to keep you from full participation in your humanity. Get over your faults, your inadequacy, if they're what hold you back. Get over whatever it is that makes you self-obsessed, whatever makes you feel like you belong to some separate and superior race of beings, whatever makes you feel like an eternal victim, whatever keeps you from living a real human life, whatever makes you imagine that there's something in this world more important and more fundamental than love. Instead, be loved. Why would you refuse? Perhaps out of pique because you think God isn't taking you seriously enough. Perhaps out of shame and embarrassment because God is being kinder to you than you think you deserve. Either way, get over yourself. You are forgiven. Start there. In the whole universe, it is the only starting point there is, anyway. There is no reality deeper than God's overflowing love." One receives redemption and forgiveness when one accepts this message of God's love. I hope that your acceptance of God's love was at the top of your list of blessings on Thanksgiving Day. (THE VERY REV'D CANON) PETER D. HAYNES----Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church Corona del Mar **** Let me say that from a Biblical point of view, redemption and forgiveness of sins are separate issues. Redemption is the free gift that God offers. It is not something earned or merited. "By Grace we are saved through faith, and it is the free gift of God, not of our own works," Paul wrote to the Ephesian church. No good works by Williams can earn him redemption. Forgiveness and reconciliation are at the heart of God. He calls us to first be reconciled with him and then be reconciled with our fellow man. If Williams is guilty, he still has not admitted his guilt. There can be no forgiveness without the confession and admission of guilt. The families of the people he killed can get no closer without an admission. Then it is up the them. They have the choice to forgive him or not. If they forgive, they are free. If they do not forgive, their choice allows him to continue to victimize them. Only through forgiveness can we find healing of the past. Regardless of redemption or forgiveness, the question of justice needs to be answered. Neither God's forgiveness nor man's repentance can erase the debt of consequence. I forgive my children quicker than I probably should sometimes, but they always learn the consequences for their choices. For me to bypass the consequences would be to teach them that they can get away with some things if they act a certain way or say certain words. Williams may be forgiven by God and his victims, but there can be no bypassing the consequences of judgment. The question of what those consequences should be (death or life imprisonment) are an entirely different question. SENIOR ASSOCIATE PASTOR RIC OLSEN----Harbor Trinity Costa Mesa (source for all: Letters to the Editor, Daily Pilot) *********************** State: No delays for inmate----Judges urged to block appeal attempts for Kevin Cooper Proclaiming that "enough is enough," state prosecutors on Friday urged a panel of federal judges to block anymore appeal attempts by death row inmate Kevin Cooper. Lawyers from the state Attorney General's office argued that evidence overwhelmingly proves Cooper guilty of the 1983 hatchet murders of four people in Chino Hills, and they argued that no reasonable judges could possibly conclude otherwise. "To believe Cooper's assertion of innocence, in other words, requires belief in fantasy," they wrote. The scathing new anti-Cooper rhetoric came in a 113-page brief filed Friday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Prosecutors filed the brief asking the court to reverse a ruling it made last month in which it granted Cooper permission to continue appealing his conviction. Cooper is on death row for the 1983 massacre of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and 11-year-old houseguest, Christopher Hughes. All 4 were stabbed and hacked to death inside the Ryen family's hilltop home in Chino Hills shortly after Cooper escaped from the nearby California Institution for Men state prison. The Ryens' 8-year-old son, Joshua, survived a slashed throat from the attack. Cooper has long proclaimed his innocence and has accused police and prosecutors of framing him for the crimes. He came within hours of being executed in February 2004, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a stay so that further testing could be done on evidence against him. A federal judge in San Diego conducted a year's worth of evidentiary hearings and ordered additional scientific testing before reaffirming Cooper's guilt earlier this year. Cooper then returned to the 9th Circuit court and asked for permission to continue his appeals, claiming he has been the victim of corrupt prosecutors, erroneous legal rulings and bad lawyering. Judges from the panel granted him that permission in October, but said they would reconsider after hearing arguments from state prosecutors. Those arguments were contained in the brief filed Friday. Deputy Attorney Holly Wilkens wrote in the brief that the DNA and other scientific tests that have been conducted on evidence since Cooper's conviction have all confirmed his guilt. She accused Cooper of using delay tactics by demanding series after series of new tests and hearings, and then disavowing the results when they aren't to his liking. "Enough is enough," Wilkens wrote. "Cooper should not be afforded further delay." Cooper's lawyers were not reached for comment late Friday afternoon. They have 30 days to file a legal reply with the court. (source: Daily Bulletin)
