Dec. 11
CALIFORNIA:
Emergency stay sought for Tookie Williams
Supporters of former gang leader and convicted killer Stanley Tookie
Williams made a last-minute pitch to save his life Sunday, saying they had
a new witness, while prosecutors asked the California Supreme Court to
allow his execution to go forward as scheduled early Tuesday.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Brault wrote to the court that Williams'
request for a stay of execution "is without merit and is manifestly
designed for delay."
Her brief came hours after a lawyer for Williams urged the court to stop
the execution on the grounds that Williams should have been allowed to
argue at his 1981 trial that someone else killed one of his four alleged
victims. She also noted state lawmakers are expected to consider a
moratorium on the death penalty next month.
The justices didn't immediately rule on either request. They earlier
denied a defense request to reopen the case over allegations that shoddy
forensics linked a weapon used in 3 of the 1979 murders to a shotgun
registered to Williams.
Williams has 1 other avenue for a reprieve besides the courts - Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said last week that he was agonizing over
Williams' request for clemency.
On Sunday, Williams' supporters made a last-minute pitch to the governor,
saying that a man who could help prove Williams' innocence had come
forward. The man's statements were sent to Schwarzenegger's office, where
the staff said he wouldn't announce his decision on the clemency request
before Monday.
"All we need now is time to investigate to make sure this story is real,"
said NAACP California President Alice Huffman. "We're hoping and praying
for clemency, but we're not going to leave any stone unturned."
As a young man, Williams co-founded Los Angeles' violent Crips street
gang, but his supporters say he has turned his life around and redeemed
himself by speaking out against violence and writing children's books on
the evils of gang life during his 24 years at San Quentin prison.
Clemency for convicted killers hasn't been common in California, though.
Schwarzenegger denied the only two previous requests to cross his desk.
The last California governor to grant clemency was Ronald Reagan, who
spared a mentally ill killer in 1967.
Williams, 51, was convicted of killing a man during a robbery in February
1979 and of murdering a couple and their daughter at a South Los Angeles
motel in March 1979.
He denies committing the murders but has apologized for founding the
Crips, a gang prosecutors blamed for thousands of murders in Los Angeles
and beyond.
In the defense petition to the state's highest court late Saturday,
attorney Verna Wefald told the justices that Los Angeles County
prosecutors failed to disclose at trial that witness Alfred Coward was not
a U.S. citizen and that he had a violent criminal history. Coward is now
in prison in Canada for the murder of a man during a robbery.
"All of the witnesses who implicated Williams were criminals who were
given significant incentives to testify against him and ongoing benefits
for their testimony," Wefald wrote.
The California Supreme Court, a federal district court judge in Los
Angeles, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court
have all upheld Williams' convictions.
(source: Associated Press)
***************
Jackson calls for gang co-founder's life to be spared
With only 2 days left before the scheduled execution of Stanley "Tookie"
Williams, Rev. Jesse Jackson made another appeal for California Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare the life of the reformed gang leader
Saturday.
Jackson said Williams had changed dramatically while in prison, worked to
discourage troubled youths from joining violent street gangs, and could
serve humanity better if allowed to live. Williams' execution is scheduled
for 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
Jackson also used the news conference at his Rainbow/PUSH headquarters on
the South Side to call for an end to the death penalty.
"We must kill the idea of killing as a solution," he said. "The eyes of
the world are upon us."
Jackson stood with death penalty opponents and a Chicago man who was
exonerated after spending 9 years on death row for a crime he didn't
commit.
Williams was sentenced to death for murdering 4 people in 2 incidents in
1979. Prosecutors said he killed his 1st victim while robbing a
convenience store, then killed an elderly couple and their daughter less
than a month later while breaking into a hotel.
Williams, 51, co-founder of the Crips, a Los Angeles street gang, is in
San Quentin State Prison.
Since his conviction, Williams has written eight books that warn children
about the dangers of gang life. The royalties go to non-profit agencies
that help troubled youths. Williams was also the focus of the film
"Redemption" starring Jamie Foxx.
His case has garnered national attention recently as political leaders and
celebrities have rallied to have his death sentence commuted to life in
prison without parole.
Victims' rights advocates oppose granting Williams clemency because of his
crimes.
Jackson said Williams may have been wrongly convicted but unable to prove
it. Williams' jury didn't include minorities, and there were no witnesses
and no substantial evidence to prove he committed the crimes he was
convicted of, Jackson said.
Jackson said it is wrong to sentence inmates to death in an unfair legal
system.
"We know if you are [Robert] Blake or O.J. [Simpson] with a dream team of
lawyers, you walk free," he said. "If you don't have a dream team of
lawyers, you will die."
Williams has not acknowledged guilt or remorse about the crimes. But
former Illinois death row inmate Darby Tillis said he and many other
inmates ended up with overburdened attorneys who couldn't devote enough
time to their cases. Death is too stiff a penalty, especially when there
are so many cases where inmates are wrongly convicted, he said.
"Once they execute you, there is no coming back," he said.
(source: Chicago Tribune)
********************
If death penalty is law, this execution must stand
If I were drafting a case study on capital punishment for an ethics class,
I would simply submit the facts about Stanley "Tookie" Williams to my
students - and moderate the raucous discussion sure to follow. It puts the
death penalty itself on trial. It forces not only the issue of deterrence
vs. retribution into the discussion but also hardened defiance vs. public
rehabilitation.
At first blush, it sounds reasonable to say Williams should be spared
execution because he has done so many genuinely good things in the past
dozen years. While on death row at San Quentin, he has written books to
encourage kids to stay out of gangs. He has made speeches (by telephone)
to church and school groups on the same theme. He has been nominated for
the Nobel Peace Prize.
Williams is not on death row for any of these post-1993 accomplishments
but for 4 murders he committed in 1979. In 1969, he had co-founded the
most violent street gang in United States history. The Crips were crack
dealers, thieves, and murderers - responsible for the deaths of literally
thousands.
In those days, by Williams' own admission, he beat and robbed people. He
shot at them. But he didn't hang around to see if people he shot lived or
died. He didn't care. He was - in his own words - a "megalomaniac" who was
"conceited, indifferent."
Then in February 1979, he and three accomplices robbed and murdered Albert
Owens, 26, a 7-Eleven clerk. Less than two weeks later, he broke down the
door at a motel and killed Yen-I Yang, 76, and Tsai-Shai Yang, 63 - owners
of the rough-neighborhood motel - and their 43-year-old daughter, Yee-Chen
Lin.
There were no surviving witnesses to testify against Williams. Three of
his friends - all with criminal histories and motivation to lie, Williams
points out - testified that he confessed the crimes to them. Williams
publicly proclaims his innocence, though convicted and sentenced to die
under California law in 1981.
>From 1983 until 1990, Williams was kept in solitary confinement at San
Quentin for fighting, assaulting guards, and ordering gang murders from
prison. He bragged about the number of police officers he had killed
personally. Then, in 1993, Williams had a spiritual awakening. He began
writing. Speaking against gang violence. Being a model prisoner.
By Williams' own account, he developed a conscience. He turned his life
around. He began filing appeals in state and federal courts. But the
courts have found no reason to reverse his conviction.
"There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," says Williams
of his life in 1979 and his life today.
Since the death penalty is a retributive punishment rather than an attempt
to stimulate (or coerce) reform, the exemplary life of Stanley "Tookie"
Williams since 1993 is logically irrelevant. In the only legally relevant
way, he is the same person he was in 1979.
Furthermore, if good deeds can trump death sentences, anyone on death row
- whether genuine or pretending - should henceforth be given the option to
revoke his execution. Make speeches against drug use. Write a book
deploring gang violence. Donate a kidney or lobe of your liver to a
stranger. In return, get your death sentence commuted.
"But what of the Christian obligation to forgive a penitent?" someone
asks. Granting Mr. Williams' penitence says nothing about whether he
should be put to death. Under our separation of church and state, mosque,
synagogue, or church may declare someone forgiven of embezzlement,
infanticide or multiple murder, but those religious institutions have no
voice in the criminal or civil actions that follow in the courts.
It really seems to be an all-or-nothing scenario. Either commute Williams'
sentence and simultaneously disallow all capital punishment statutes or
maintain the ethical legitimacy of capital punishment by following through
with the execution of a multiple murderer on December 13.
The difference in this case study and ones I have used for university
exams is obvious. This one stands to be someone's final exam.
(source: Opinion, Rubel Shelly, The Tennessean)
*****************
Californians soul-searching in countdown to execution ---- 2/3 in state
support the death penalty, but polls haven't asked questions about
redemption
Pollsters regularly measure the public's opinion of the death penalty, but
there is scant research on the soul-searching question that shrouds the
case of Stanley Tookie Williams, the quadruple killer and gang founder who
is scheduled to be executed Tuesday in San Quentin prison:
Do you believe that inmates have the capacity to reform?
Advocates on both sides of the death penalty issue believe that
Californians are having their most introspective public discussion in
decades about whether the state should execute people.
Though polls show that two-thirds of Californians support the death
penalty, the cultural landscape has slowly been changing. From the
Legislature's 2004 creation of a commission that is examining flaws in the
capital punishment system, to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger adding the word
"rehabilitation" to the title of the state Department of Corrections this
year, there are signs of introspection behind the poll numbers.
In January, the Assembly will hold a hearing on a bill that would halt
executions until January 2009, a year after the California Commission on
the Fair Administration of Justice's report on capital punishment is
supposed to be done.
The public conversation was jump-started this fall with Oscar winner Jamie
Foxx and hip-hop star Snoop Dogg touting Williams' post-incarceration
redemption. Soon it will be hard for Californians to escape hard questions
about the death penalty that go beyond the Williams case.
California is on track to execute three people in the next two months, a
sharp jump for a state that has put to death just 11 people in the past 13
years.
Scheduled to be executed Jan. 17 is 75-year-old Clarence Ray Allen, who is
legally blind, diabetic and uses a wheelchair. Allen, who was serving a
life sentence for murder when he was convicted of arranging the killings
of three people, would be the oldest person executed in the United States
since the death penalty was restored in 1977.
Michael Morales, a convicted murderer from Lodi, is expected to get an
execution date in February or early March.
"When there is an execution every 18 months or 2 years, people have been
able to go back into their holes and not think about it for while," said
Elisabeth Semel, a UC Berkeley law professor and director of the Death
Penalty Clinic at Boalt Hall, which advocates for death row inmates.
At the same time, Semel said, some advocates are worried that by March,
Californians will be "Texified" -- so numb to state-sponsored killing that
the anti-death-penalty movement withers. Texas is far and away the
nation's leader in executions, having put 355 inmates to death since 1977.
Semel and other death penalty opponents hope the public conversation
extends beyond the black-or-white question that most pollsters put to
people: Do you believe in the death penalty?
The answer to that question is solidly "yes," but support drops when
pollsters start asking more complex questions.
In March 2004, 68 % of the 958 registered California voters responding to
a Field Poll said they supported the death penalty. But what Field
pollsters called a "sizable minority" -- 31 % -- said they didn't think
the punishment had been imposed on convicted criminals in a manner that
was "generally fair and free of error."
And when given the choice of punishing 1st-degree murder with death or
life imprisonment with no parole, 53 % chose life without parole in a
Public Policy Institute of California survey in February 2004.
Keeping the conversation going will be several high-profile statewide
political races next year.
"Oh, this next year is going to be a hot one, with the governor's race and
the attorney general and all the district attorneys races," said Harriet
Salarno, president of Crime Victims United, a statewide advocacy
organization that supports the death penalty.
"The thing you have to remember is that no matter what the governor
decides on clemency (for Williams), the people that oppose the death
penalty are the same Hollywood people who want Williams to go free," said
Salarno, whose daughter was murdered 26 years ago on her first day of
class at the University of the Pacific. "We have to make sure that the
people who shout the loudest aren't the only ones who are heard."
The next few months may also bring some public opinion data that offer
deeper insight into California's soul-searching.
"As rehabilitation becomes more in vogue, there may be more interest in
discussing policy alternatives," said the Field Poll's Mark DiCamillo. He
said there is a strong chance that Field will ask Californians their
thoughts on rehabilitation early next year.
"But 68 % (support for the death penalty) is quite high," DiCamillo said.
"There are relatively few issues where you get that kind of support."
Death penalty opponents see Williams as a godsend for their movement,
having turned into an anti-gang advocate from behind bars. Many advocates
feel he will be a rallying figure even if he is put to death.
"If the state actually executes a man who is a nonviolent voice, there
could be some real anger out there," said Karen Jo Koonan, a senior trial
consultant in Oakland for the National Jury Project.
Executing Williams, a man who has tried to rehabilitate himself, will tell
at-risk young people "that the public really doesn't care about them,"
said the Rev. Sally Bystroff, a retired Presbyterian minister from
Livermore and member of the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Commission.
The longtime anti-death-penalty advocate spent a day last week visiting
with girls in Alameda County's juvenile hall who had read Williams'
anti-gang books for youths.
But serving a sentence on death row isn't about rehabilitation, said
Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for state Attorney General Bill Lockyer. It's
about punishment.
"What Stanley Tookie Williams has done over the past 12 years has not
changed what he did over 26 years ago -- murdered 4 people," Barankin
said.
Still, Barankin said he realizes that the spotlight on capital punishment
won't dim regardless of what happens to Williams.
"To the extent that it sparks more debate, it's a good thing," he said.
"How we apply the death penalty is something we should be thinking about
all the time."
(source: San Francisco Chronicle)
****************
Life in the shadow of death row----Residents enjoy town of San Quentin
After trading traffic and the celebrity culture of Los Angeles for an
apartment on a one-lane road skimming San Francisco Bay, Liz Siegel was
slightly annoyed to learn that an out-of-towner had parked his SUV in her
assigned space one recent Saturday.
"Snoop Dogg. What are the odds of that? I moved to get away from Snoop
Dogg," Siegel said, referring to the droopy-eyed rap star who parked in
her space and is known as much for his criminal past as his music.
Such is life in San Quentin Village, a community of 116 houses that looks
like Cape Cod but lies a stone's throw from California's death row.
Executions always draw crowds of death penalty opponents here, but the
scheduled execution of former gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams, the
state's highest-profile capital punishment case in decades, has brought a
new cast of characters to San Quentin. With them have come opportunities
and frustrations for the locals who don't reside behind bars.
Lining the only public route into San Quentin State Prison, where Williams
is scheduled to die by lethal injection early Tuesday, their neighborhood
has hosted a stream of celebrities stopping by to visit the condemned man,
as well as news media angling to line up parking on execution night. The
hulking prison dead-ends two-block-long Main Street, which was laid out a
century ago before houses came with garages or on-street parking.
Judy Alstrom, who lives with her husband on a double lot that offers "a
money shot" of the prison, says it gets old picking up trash crowds leave
behind during rallies such as the one that drew Snoop Dogg and about 1,000
people last month. Compensation will come with $1,000 a local television
crew is paying the couple to rent their driveway on Monday.
"Space is at a premium around here," Alstrom said. "It's kind of like
living on a boat. You have to be real careful about not bumping into
someone every time you turn around."
While most prison towns are populated by people who work in corrections,
those who live just outside San Quentin said they are motivated not by the
promise of a decent-paying job, but a peaceful, picturesque setting that
rivals any in the Bay Area. In fact, most residents interviewed last week
said they oppose the death penalty.
"Yeah, there are a couple days of the year when they are going to execute
somebody and it might get crazy, but most of the time it's so beautiful,"
said David Barni, who moved to San Quentin Village in 1982 before
California resumed putting criminals to death after a 25-year hiatus. "In
the morning, the water is like glass and the sun sparkles off of it, and
at night the moon reflects right off the water and it's like glass again."
Granted, being a resident here has it's idiosyncrasies and inconveniences.
It's a place where the official census stands at 6,914 men and 104 women
and the only store in town is a gift shop selling dream catchers,
snakeskin belts and other crafts made by prison inmates.
Siegel, a television producer who works in San Francisco, said when she
first inquired about the place she ended up renting last month, the real
estate agent told her it was located in another Marin County town. After
getting over her initial hesitancy, she had to get used to the idea that
her new address would be a P.O. Box in San Quentin because the U.S. Postal
Service only delivers to the post office just steps from the prison gate.
"All my friends get a kick out of the fact that I live on death row,"
Siegel said. "The only thing is it's a little embarrassing every time I
call the cable company or something."
Barni said during the last execution, the California Highway Patrol
ordered San Quentin Village residents to move their cars off Main Street
for security reasons. He spent an hour relocating 3 cars to another town
several miles away, but the next morning a member of the news media drove
up and claimed the spot in front of his house.
"It's little things," he said. "Compared to a person dying, what can I
say, that's ridiculous to worry about."
Ty Hunter moved into a condominium in San Quentin four years ago and has
never been inside the prison. The only time she really thinks about it is
when a light posted on top of the guard tower flashes red, meaning there
has been a prisoner lockdown or some kind of disturbance. She never
worries about her personal safety, figuring that if an inmate escaped,
hanging around Main Street would be the furthest thing on his mind.
"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed. "It's the safest neighborhood in the
whole freakin' world!"
(source: Associated Press)
****************
The killers die too easy and too full in this state
As I write this we still don't know if Stanley Tookie Williams will die by
lethal injection on Tuesday for the cold-blooded murders of 4 innocent
people. But if he is executed, we the people of California will send him
off with a really nice dinner if he wants one.
As you probably know, it's traditional in California and elsewhere for
condemned men to be given a last meal of their own choosing just before
they're executed. As Department of Corrections spokeswoman Elaine Jennings
told me, "As far back as anyone can remember, there's always been a last
meal given."
But it kind of makes you wonder. If a man is so loathsome and evil that
we've sent him to San Quentin's death row, does he really deserve a
special feast before we kill him?
There are some restrictions on last meals, which are served to the
condemned man at 7 p.m. the evening before his post-midnight execution, as
he waits in the "death watch cell." The meal can't cost over $50. Only the
condemned man can eat it. No alcohol is served.
And if the dead man walking wants a last cigarette with his last meal,
he's out of luck. The prison system's no-indoor smoking policies prohibit
it - although he will be given a nicotine patch if he requests one.
But other than that, prison officials will comply with any "reasonable"
request for a last meal. And some of the 11 condemned murderers who have
died on California's Death Row since 1967 - all of them men, 9 of them
white, 1 black and 1 "other" - have taken full advantage of it.
For example, for his last meal in 1996, William George "The Freeway
Killer" Bonin, convicted of raping and murdering 14 boys, including 4 in
Orange County, ordered and received two large Round Table sausage and
pepperoni pizzas, 3 pints of coffee ice cream and 3 6-packs of non-diet
Coca-Cola.
I was a news media witness at Bonin's execution, watching as he died from
an injection of potassium chloride. And given the horror of his crimes, I
always thought he died too easy - and that he also died too full.
Another Orange County murderer who got a lavish last meal was Thomas
Martin Thompson, who raped and murdered a young woman in Laguna Beach in
1981. Before his execution in 1998, Thompson ordered Alaskan king crab
with melted butter, spinach salad, pork fried rice, Mandarin-style spare
ribs, a hot fudge sundae and a 6-pack of Coke.
And so on. Robert Alton Harris, murderer of two teenage boys in San Diego,
ordered pizza, ice cream and a bucket of extra crispy Kentucky Fried
Chicken before his 1992 execution. Murderer-rapist Keith Daniel Williams
ordered pork chops, baked potato (with real butter), asparagus, salad with
bleu cheese dressing, apple pie and whole milk before his 1996 execution.
Before he was executed in 2001, murderer Robert Lee Massie ordered two
vanilla milkshakes, french fries, fried oysters and soft drinks. Murderer
Stephen Wayne Anderson, executed in 2002, chowed down on grilled cheese
sandwiches, cottage cheese, peach pie, chocolate chip ice cream and,
strangely, radishes.
On the other hand, some condemned men don't display much appetite. Jaturun
Siripongs, executed in 1999 for the 1981 murders of two people in a Garden
Grove grocery store, made do with a last meal of two cans of Lucky Arctic
iced tea and two cups of Mission Pride canned peaches. Darrell Keith Rich,
who raped and murdered 3 young women and an 11-year-old girl, ordered tea,
broth and Gatorade before he was dispatched to hell in 2000.
Other condemned men made it even easier. David Edwin Mason, who strangled
four elderly people, requested only ice water before he was gassed to
death in 1993. And Manuel Pina Babbitt, who murdered and sexually
assaulted a 78-year-old woman, fasted before his execution by lethal
injection in 1999.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that condemned murderers be
starved before they're executed. Actually, I would suggest that, but the
courts would never permit it.
But maybe the special last meal is a tradition we don't need. Maybe
instead of king crab and fudge sundaes, these vicious killers should be
forced to follow the example of murderer Donald Beardslee, who refused a
special meal before his execution last January and was instead served the
standard prison fare for that day - that is, chili macaroni.
True, prison-style chili-mac may not be much of a last meal. But compared
with the last thing these murderers served their victims - a grim feast of
pain and terror and horror - it's still far better than they really
deserve.
(source: Orange County Register ---- Gordon Dillow's opinions on local
news appear every Wednesday and Sunday. A Register columnist for the past
nine years, he was an embedded reporter in Iraq with a Marine infantry
unit from Camp Pendleton in 2003 and 2004. Dillow was a U.S. Army sergeant
in Vietnam in 1971-72. He has a journalism degree from the University of
Montana.)
***********************
Glitz and Gore of Williams Case Draw Foreign Media
European reporters have swarmed enthusiastically around the story of
Stanley Tookie Williams. And why not?
The pending execution of the convicted killer allows them to talk about
class and race in America, and mark another milepost in the enduring
discussion about the last Western democracy to sanction the death penalty.
And then there's the "glitter," as one Italian reporter put it last week -
supplied by California's European-born, movie-star governor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and by the virtual Greek chorus of Williams' celebrity
supporters, including actors Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover, and rap star
Snoop Dogg.
The stars of glitz, gore and glamour last aligned for the O.J. Simpson
murder trial.
"It's got a lot of gosh-wow to it, doesn't it?" David Willis, the BBC's
West Coast correspondent, said after a clemency hearing for Williams in
Schwarzenegger's office Thursday morning. "It's just a very layered and
interesting story."
And so Willis filed 3 2-minute packages on the Williams case and appeared
in half a dozen other live shots in a 24-hour period ending Thursday. All
those stories were beamed back to England and the rest of the British
network's worldwide market.
French, German, Greek and Italian reporters covering the case expressed
many of the same feelings - feeding an appetite for stories from their
home offices that has grown as the time for Schwarzenegger's decision
grows short. Without clemency, Williams is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m.
Tuesday.
Indicating the magnitude of the story in recent days, particularly in
Europe, Paolo Bonolis, one of Italy's most popular television
personalities, conducted an eight-minute telephone interview with Williams
on the nighttime magazine program "Il Senso della Vita" (The Sense of
Life).
Many of the continent's other top news programs plan to weigh in with
extended packages in coming days.
The overseas fixation on American death cases is not new.
Many European newspapers and television news programs carried reports
after Kenneth Lee Boyd died of lethal injection Dec. 2, the 1,000th
execution since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the death
penalty to resume in 1976.
Nearly half a century earlier, California Gov. Pat Brown created a
sensation when he attempted to save "Red Light Bandit" Caryl Chessman from
the gas chamber. London newspapers gave the rapist's case bigger play than
even the 1960 birth of Queen Elizabeth's 2nd son, Prince Andrew, said
Brown biographer Ethan Rarick.
Although today's foreign reporters said they intended to present the
Williams case in all its complexity, several acknowledged that they
harbored grave personal concerns about the American death penalty that
they believe were shared by their audiences back home.
"This is a Christian nation with a Christian president who believes in
Christian principles, including forgiveness," Karin Stewart, a
correspondent for Germany's Spiegel television, said outside Thursday's
clemency hearing. "So one would assume that the death penalty would be
somewhat of a conflict with those Christian principles. I think that is
one of the problems people have with it."
Thierry Vivier, working on a 20-minute piece for the French-German
television magazine program "Reportage," said the European belief that
America metes out justice unequally is so strong it goes unstated in his
coverage. "It's pretty obvious to most people," Vivier said. "They assume
black people are not treated the way they should be in this country; that
would be common sense among a number of people."
Ramzy Malouki, Los Angeles bureau chief for France's Canal Plus network,
said some American laws and procedures baffle his audience - particularly
how states have the power to impose the death penalty, and carry it out
with such divergent frequency.
Vivier said the French also are perplexed at the decades-long delays that
precede some executions. "They don't understand the purpose of keeping
someone for years and years and then killing them," he said. "It has come
down to the point of absurdity for some people."
Luca Celada of Italy's RAI network, also in Sacramento to cover the
clemency hearing, said the death penalty "doesn't look good to most
Italians." He recalled the outpouring of anguish and protests that greeted
the deaths of a handful of Italian soldiers in the Iraq war.
"We had a huge resonance when we had a half-dozen fatalities in Iraq,"
Celada said. "I would only say there seems to be a much higher tolerance
for [death] in this country."
The foreign media listened intently when a prosecutor followed the
Thursday clemency hearing with a vivid description of the 4 shotgun
slayings for which Williams was convicted in 1979.
Lead defense attorney Peter Fleming Jr., in contrast, made limited remarks
in Williams' defense and rebuffed most questions from reporters who packed
the room.
Celada seemed troubled by the lack of advocacy from the Williams camp.
"This was peculiar what they did," Celada commented to a colleague
afterward. "I think it was real defeatism. I can't believe it."
Several of the European journalists said though the story of Williams, who
helped create the Crips street gang, was compelling, they recognized the
importance of the victims' stories.
"The editors have been very keen on highlighting the victims' relatives,
rather than glamorizing the story, as one can in television, with Jamie
Foxx and Snoop Dogg and all these celebrities," said the BBC's Willis. "We
wanted to make sure we took adequate time in depicting the suffering of
the families."
But in the end, Willis said, the outsize nature of the players in the case
is the factor that will keep drawing public interest in England and the
rest of the world: "I think they're wondering: 'Is a movie star, a man who
was playing the Terminator at the local movie theater 10 minutes ago, now
deciding the fate of this man?'
"That is America. That is politics. And that's why we are so interested in
what you folks are up to over here."
(source: Los Angeles Times)
*************************
Crime and Punishment----Why an execution won't kill grief
My father was murdered in 1969. He was a junior high-school principal in
Tomah, Wis. A troubled 14-year-old student walked into his office just
before Thanksgiving and shot him with a hunting rifle.
My father was one of the first victims of school violence, and the shock
of his death reached beyond the 6,000 residents of Tomah. My mother was
unable to cope with the tragedy, and although I was 21 years old and just
finishing college, I took over the care of my brother and sister, who were
then 5 and 6 respectively. My mother died 6 years later.
My father's death shaped and reshaped my life in many ways. I have never
spoken publicly against the death penalty, because I am so aware of the
pain and grief of the families who have lost someone due to the actions of
the person facing execution. The person who killed my father was in
juvenile care for about three years, then he was released with some
restrictions. Later, I was told he died in a traffic accident. His death
did not change our grief. All these years later, I still miss my father
and I am still sorry for the boy who killed him.
I do not believe in killing. I believe my family's grief would not have
been lifted had the state of Wisconsin killed my father's killer. Killing
solves nothing. I cannot imagine that it lessens grief. I know many
believe that "an eye for an eye" will somehow bring relief and the grief
will be over. I can only say that "it" is never over. The loss becomes a
part of who we are. We pick up and carry on and hopefully seek comfort
over the years. Raising my younger siblings gave me some solace.
I am going to try to contact Rebecca Owens, the daughter of Albert Louis
Owens, who recently found out the details of her father's case: He was one
of 4 people Stanley Tookie Williams was convicted of murdering and for
which Williams now awaits execution at San Quentin Prison. I do not know
all the details of the case -- but I do know the grief of a daughter who
loses her father violently and suddenly, and perhaps I can be of some
help.
I believe the state of California should place a moratorium on executions.
Often the adage proves true that capital punishment is punishment for
those without capital. Details of crimes often emerge that overturn
convictions. Some convicted killers have found redemption and new
directions while in prison. I recognize the rational need for long prison
sentences for violent crimes, but taking a life serves no purpose in my
mind.
I am now a teacher, following in my dear father's footsteps in many ways.
I stand for forgiveness and mercy with the hope that all people will come
to realize that killing solves nothing.
(source: San Francisco Chronicle - Marti Mogensen teaches at Berkwood
Hedge School in Berkeley. She recently established an annual lecture and
scholarship at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in memory of Martin
Mogensen's life work)
*****************
Proposed moratorium on death penalty coming before Assembly
A proposed moratorium on the death penalty in California will come before
an Assembly committee in January.
The bill calls for postponing executions at least until after a committee
studying the fairness of the state's justice system reports its findings.
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice has until
the end of 2007 to issue a report.
In February, Assemblyman Paul Koretz, D-North Hollywood, introduced
Assembly Bill 1121, which calls for the moratorium.
He has waited until January to start moving the bill forward because he
wanted fellow legislators to have time to think the issue over, said David
Hersch, legislative aide to Koretz.
He said the measure will be heard before the Assembly Public Safety
Committee on Jan. 10.
"Our system of justice is far from perfect, and capital punishment is no
exception," Koretz stated in a news release. "Since the early 1970s, 119
death-row inmates were found to be innocent and subsequently exonerated,
in some cases escaping death by hours."
Last year, Democrats in the state Senate voted to establish the Commission
on the Fair Administration of Justice. Their measure didn't need a vote of
the Assembly or the governor's signature to be effective.
The commission has had a couple of meetings so far, said Lance Lindsey,
executive director of Death Penalty Focus, a California group that opposes
the death penalty.
The 13-member commission includes attorneys, professors, a rabbi and
others. Among its members are Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and Jim
Fox, district attorney for San Mateo County.
The commission is charged with determining how often there have been
wrongful convictions and executions in California and recommending ways of
preventing such instances.
Lindsey said he believes the commission will find that justice is not
administered very fairly in the state.
Whether or not a convict is sentenced to death depends largely on "race,
place and poverty," he said. Nonwhites are executed more often than
whites, he said. In some counties, death sentences are common, while in
others they are rare. And defendants with enough money to hire the best
lawyers seldom receive death sentences.
Lindsey said he's not certain how likely it is Koretz's bill will become
law next year.
It may take more than a year to get it passed, he said. "We're always
optimistic. We feel momentum is on our side. Generally, the trend is
toward less use of the death penalty."
One legislator who likely won't support AB1121 is state Sen. Sam Aanestad,
R-Grass Valley, who represents the north valley.
His press secretary, Bill Bird, said Aanestad feels the death penalty is
effective and justifiable.
Last year, Aanestad voted along with other Senate Republicans against
former Senate President John Burton's bill (Senate Resolution 44) which
set up the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.
(source: Chico Enterprise-Record)
************************
Suits proceed on state plans for death row
As the focus of attention turns to the Stanley Tookie Williams execution,
Marin County is in court this week on 2 fronts in its battle to derail San
Quentin State Prison's death row expansion project.
"Short of inviting 100 of my best friends to lie in front of bulldozers,
our options end with the two court hearings," said Marin Supervisor Steve
Kinsey, who opposes the new death row plans. "That's unless the governor
wakes up to the importance of this issue to California's future."
Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said the
governor had no plans to block construction of the $233 million death row
on 40 acres next to the existing prison near Larkspur Landing.
"The administration is moving forward to implement the plan authorized by
the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis more than two years ago," Soderlund
said. "It is written into law that California is to house and execute
condemned inmates at San Quentin."
For at least the past three years, Kinsey and Assemblyman Joe Nation,
D-San Rafael, have spearheaded a drive to stop the state Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation from building the new maximum-security
compound. The leaders say the Marin bayfront site makes no economic sense
for a new death row and would be better used for a regional transit hub
and deep-water ferry port.
Corrections officials claim the new facility is a necessity for prison
security and that it must, by state law, be located at San Quentin.
After a year of promises, Schwarzenegger's staffers still have not set at
time to hear Kinsey and Nation's case against the project. Nation said
Friday, however, he holds a slight hope that Schwarzenegger's appointment
last month of Mill Valley Democrat Susan Kennedy as his chief of staff
could change that dynamic.
"I'm not ready to throw in the towel until we've made one more run at the
governor's office," said Nation, who added he has known Kennedy for five
years. "I don't know where she (Kennedy) stands on this, but it's
certainly a subject she's aware of."
Despite the leaders' and community protests, the state Public Works Board
voted last month to proceed with construction, possibly as early as next
June. The new death row, originally planned to cost $220 million and
include 1,024 inmate cells, is now planned at $233 million and 768 cells.
Earlier this year, the Marin Board of Supervisors sued the state
corrections department, saying the state's environmental impact report on
the death row project was inadequate because it failed to consider any
sites elsewhere in California.
A hearing on that suit will be 9 a.m. Wednesday before Marin Superior
Court Judge Vern Smith. Attorney Michael Zischke, of Morrison & Foerster,
San Francisco,will represent Marin because he is an expert on state
environmental law, said David Zaltsman, deputy county counsel.
"If the judge agrees the EIR is inadequate and needs to be redone, that
would stop the project from moving forward until a new EIR is certified,
and action is taken to approve that EIR," Zaltsman said.
Earlier this fall, the county filed a second suit - this one against the
state Department of Finance for its decision this summer to allow the
project, then estimated at $265 million, to be downsized.
The county is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the project
because, Zaltsman said, "the Department of Finance exceeded its authority
in shrinking the project to keep it within budget."
A hearing on that case will be 10 a.m. Friday before Sacramento Superior
Court Judge Lloyd Connelly.
Both Kinsey and Nation said they oppose the death penalty - although they
acknowledge that is a separate issue from building a new death row in
Marin.
Nation last week sent Schwarzenegger a letter calling for a death penalty
moratorium; Kinsey spoke out against the death penalty at last week's
Board of Supervisors meeting.
The whole issue of building a new death row would be moot if the governor
agreed to stop executions, Nation said. Other towns, such as Folsom, would
not have the same opposition to housing inmates doing life sentences as
they would to housing a death row, he said.
"In Folsom, the fear has been a death row would change the perception of
what the town represents and that businesses would not want to locate
there," he added. "That would not be true if Folsom took in Level Four
prisoners, who are already housed at several different locations around
the state."
Kinsey said Schwarzenegger needs to take a public position on the death
row expansion instead of "hiding behind the fact that it was a bad
decision by the Gray Davis administration."
"The decision is actually happening on his watch," Kinsey added. "He needs
to have a public point of view on it."
IN THE SPOTLIGHT:
San Quentin's death row is in the spotlight in the week ahead. Here's a
summary:
- 12:01 Tuesday - Barring a last-minute reprieve, Stanley Tookie Williams
to be executed at San Quentin.
- 9 a.m. Wednesday - Marin Superior Court Judge Vern Smith to hear Marin
lawsuit against the state's environmental impact report for the planned
$233 million new death row at San Quentin at the Civic Center in San
Rafael.
- 10 a.m. Friday - Sacramento Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly to hear
Marin lawsuit against the state Department of Finance for its approval of
a reduced scope for the new death row at the Gordon Schaber courthouse in
downtown Sacramento.
(source: Marin Independent Journal)
********************
Death penalty questions----Is is right? Is it wrong? What shall this
nation do?
Should Stanley "Tookie" Williams die? Can we believe that this man, who
was convicted of murdering four people and is acknowledged as one of the
founders of the infamous Crips gang, has found redemption in prison? Can
we believe this man who was nominated for a Nobel Prize and who writes
books that tell children to stay out of gangs yet refuses, after countless
unsuccessful appeals, to admit his guilt or apologize to the victims'
families?
Is it conceivable that all the good that Williams and his supporters claim
he has done makes up for the four lives he took? Can we truly believe
Williams when he says he has turned his life around, and if he is allowed
to live, will continue to devote his life to preaching the evils of gangs?
Should Clarence Ray Allen die?
Should Allen, who at 75 is the oldest man on California's death row,
receive clemency because he recently had a heart attack, is blind, has
diabetes and frequently uses a wheelchair? Should Allen receive special
consideration because, as he claims in a lawsuit against the prison
department, since his heart attack he has been denied proper medications,
and has not been provided recommended bypass surgery?
Even though Allen is on death row for hiring a hit man, while he was
already in prison for murder, to kill three people in Fresno whose
testimony Allen feared would hurt his appeal, does his deteriorating
health condition make his execution moot?
Should anyone die at the hands of the state?
Should we focus on the individuals and the crimes they committed or should
we concern ourselves with the larger question of the death penalty? Is the
death penalty, as it is administered in the United States, fair and
equitable? If it is, then why since 1976 when the Supreme Court allowed
the resumption of capital punishment, has the state of Texas put to death
nearly four times as many people as any other state? And why, in 2003, did
outgoing Republican governor George Ryan of Illinois grant clemency to
every one of the 167 inmates on death row?
Given the number of errors that occur in our judicial system, can we be
sure that everyone put to death deserves to die? If we can't be sure,
should we take the risk of putting innocent human beings to death?
And what about redemption? Do we really believe that people can turn their
lives around, shed their criminal ways and become productive and
worthwhile members of society?
On another level, does the death penalty work? Does it deter people from
committing heinous crimes? Is there any evidence that shows the death
penalty actually stopped a crime?
What does the death penalty achieve? Does it bring greater comfort to the
victim's families than a lifetime loss of freedom? If it saves taxpayers
money, is that reason enough to put another human being to death? Does it
actually save taxpayers money, given the high costs of running death rows
and the huge sums that are spent on the interminable appeals process?
On the other hand, should we allow vicious predators in our society to
commit the most despicable of crimes and face as their punishment a
lifetime confinement among their own kind? Are they that much different
from a rabid dog that we "humanely" put to sleep? Should we risk the
possibility that some time in the future these predators might re-enter
society, either through a judicial quirk or possibly escape, and do
further damage?
On a global scale, why is the U.S. seemingly out of step with most of the
rest of the world? Why have Russia, South America and most countries in
Europe stopped putting people to death? Why do they consider it a barbaric
act while nearly 2/3 of Americans do not?
These are just some of the questions I imagine Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
is grappling with as he considers Williams' request for clemency. Thrown
into this mix are also questions about how his decision will affect him
politically. It seems eminently unfair that any one person should have to
carry the burden and face the consequences of such life-and-death
decisions. No matter which way he decides, either morally or politically,
he can't win.
Whatever Schwarzenegger decides about whether Williams lives or dies,
something good can come from it if it prompts a re-examination of the use
of the death penalty in this country. Coming up with the questions is
easy.
Coming up with answers, well, that's a whole other matter.
(source: Opinion, Ventura County Star - Joe R. Howry is editor of The
Star)
******************************
Butte County trio also await death sentence
At A Glance:
With the scheduled execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams imminent, and a
Jan. 17 execution date set for Clarence Ray Allen, today begins a 3-day
look at the death penalty from a local perspective.
Today, we look at the three Butte County men waiting on death row at San
Quentin prison, and the lengthy process that begins with a conviction.
Sunday, we hear from a Chico nun who became friends with a convicted
murder who she believes found redemption and is an opponent of the death
penalty.
Monday, local prosecutors who have to choose whether to seek the death
penalty, explain what drives their decisions.
3 former Butte County residents share an exclusive, though not sought
after, address with 2 men who have a rare bit of personal information:
Stanley "Tookie" Williams and Clarence Roy Allen know the day they are
going to die.
Lee Max Barnett, Steven Crittenden and Dannie Hillhouse live not far from
them, on California's death row in San Quentin prison.
Allen and Williams, both convicted of multiple murders, each have dates
with the executioner. Williams, cofounder of the Crips street gang and
convicted of four murders, is scheduled to die Tuesday. Allen, who was
found guilty of engineering a series of killings while he was already in
prison for murder, is supposed to die by lethal injection Jan. 17.
While these 2 have spent decades exhausting all their avenues of appeal,
the Butte County trio still have a long way to go.
The journey from crime to punishment in California follows a long and
sometimes rambling path.
For Barnett, the senior member of the Butte County death row contingent,
the journey began in July 1986, in a foothill mining camp about 13 miles
north of Forest Ranch.
On Monday, July 7th, the naked corpse of Richard Eggett, 44, was found
stuffed into the back of a Jeep, which was it self located deep in the
underbrush off a logging road.
Eggett's battered body showed numerous stab wounds, and his feet had been
peppered with "snake shot," tiny shotgun-like pellets fired from a pistol.
Just days after Eggett's body was discovered, Barnett, then 42, was
arrested on Cohasset Road, by a pair of Chico police officers.
A lengthy trial, where Barnett repeatedly attempted to fire his
court-appointed attorneys, left him in county jail for more than 800 days
before Nov. 30, 1988, when he was sentenced to die for the torture-murder.
Crittenden was a 19-year-old Chico State University freshman, when he was
arrested Jan. 21, 1987 for the murder of retired Dr. William Chiapella,
67, and his wife, Katherine "Kay" Chiapella, 66.
The couple, who had been stabbed and beaten to death, were discovered Jan.
17, in their Downing Avenue home.
Crittenden was arrested by Chico police detectives at his West Ninth
Street apartment after he had cashed a $3,000 check made out to him by
Mrs. Chiapella.
During his trial, which was moved to Auburn on a change of venue motion
because of local publicity, the prosecution convinced a jury Crittenden
had tortured the elderly couple to get Mrs. Chiapella to sign the check.
On June 12, 1989, Crittenden bowed his head in silence as he heard Placer
County Judge James D. Garbolino say, "For the murders of William and
Katherine Chiapella it is the order of this court that the defendant be
put to death, in a manner prescribed by law."
In a twist, while Barnett and Crittenden were both in Butte County jail,
the pair combined on a project of their own.
Barnett had already been convicted of murder and Crittenden was awaiting
trial, when in the early hours of Sept. 26, 1988, the pair and a third
inmate attempted to break out of jail.
Somehow the trio secured a hacksaw blade and cut the bars in their single
cells.
They jumped a guard, but he broke away, and locked the inmates in a jail
day room.
When other guards, backed up by a growling police dog, quickly gathered
near the day room, the 3 inmates surrendered without ever getting out of
the building.
That was the 2nd time Crittenden had attempted a jailbreak.
On May 11, 1987, Crittenden smashed out a jail window and dashed to a
private home about 500 yards from the facility.
He was hiding in the house when the homeowner came in. Brandishing what
later turned out to be a toy gun, Crittenden kidnapped the homeowner and
forced him to drive to downtown Sacramento.
Once there Crittenden left the man's pickup. As soon as the escapee was
out of the vehicle the man tracked down Sacramento police officers, and
Crittenden was back custody in about 15 minutes.
Hillhouse began the journey that put him on the path to the death chamber
one day sometimes after midnight on the morning of March 9, 1991.
Dannie, 30, and is brother, Lonnie, 23, met Brent Michael Schultz, 28, a
carpenter from Lake Tahoe, in a Chico bar.
Lonnie, who later pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder and was sentenced to
15 years to life, told a Butte County jury, the brothers used the victim's
pickup to drive the drunken Schultz up the Skyway into the area of
Stirling City.
At some point Schultz asked them to stop and the victim walked into the
brush off the Skyway to find a place to urinate.
Lonnie testified that's when Dannie, using a kitchen knife, stabbed
Schultz 4 times in the chest, killing him.
Less than a week after the murder, sheriff's deputies surrounded an
apartment complex on East 12th Street, where they took Dannie into custody
without a struggle.
At least in part, investigators were led to Dannie after he pawned some
tools belonging to Schultz in a Chico shop.
Prosecutors are not required to prove a motive in a murder case, however,
from the beginning investigators said robbery was behind Schultz's
killing.
Lonnie told the Butte County Superior Court jury he and his brother only
got about $20 and the tools from their victim.
By January of 1992, Lonnie had already pleaded guilty and been sentenced.
Dannie was found guilty in July of that year, and he heard his death
sentence Oct. 13, 1992.
Richard Schultz, the victim's father, attended the sentencing for Dannie,
and afterwards told a reporter, "I only wish I could pull the switch or
drop the pellets.
(source: Mercury-Register)
