[Deathpenalty]death penalty news----MISS., CALIF.

[Rick Halperin]

Dec. 12


MISSISSIPPI----impending execution

Clemency for killer rejected


Condemned killer John B. Nixon Sr.'s last hope for avoiding execution
Wednesday now rests with the U.S. Supreme Court after Gov. Haley Barbour
denied his clemency request.

"I find nothing to convince me that clemency is justified in this case,"
Barbour said in a statement Sunday. "The real tragedy is that justice in
this case has been delayed for more than 20 years. A delay of this length
greatly reduces the deterrent effect of the death penalty."

Barbour said he made the decision after a careful review of the records
presented on behalf of Nixon.

Nixon, 77, is set to die by lethal injection for fatally shooting Virginia
Tucker in the head on Jan. 22 ,1985, in a murder-for-hire scheme. He has
been on death row since March 1986, shortly before his 58th birthday.

Nixon was given the news of Barbour''s decision Sunday afternoon, said
David W. Clark, his local attorney.

"I don't know what his response was," Clark said. "We do have appeals in
the U.S. Supreme Court. We are still hopeful the Supreme Court will come
through."

But the high court refused last month to hear Nixon's appeal.

If executed, Nixon would be the oldest person in the United States put to
death since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. His execution would
be the first in Mississippi since December 2002.

Barbour said he will not substitute his judgment for the judgment of the
jury and the courts that have heard Nixon's case.

"Those courts have reviewed the legal issues and determined that this
defendant's legal rights were protected at every stage," Barbour said.
"His various appeals over all these years were repeatedly heard and
consistently denied."

Retired Rankin County Sheriff J.B. Torrence, who was in office when Tucker
was killed, said Nixon "deserves what he is going to get."

Nixon was paid $1,000 by Tucker's ex-husband, Elster J. Ponthieux, to kill
Tucker and her husband, Thomas. Ponthieux and 3 other men, including 2 of
Nixon's sons, were convicted in the plot.

Thomas Tucker survived the attempt on his life at the Tuckers' Brandon
home, and later identified Nixon as the man who killed his wife.

Thomas Tucker rejected a request for an interview by The Clarion-Ledger on
Sunday through Mississippi Department of Corrections of Victims Services
Director Brad Thompson. He has said he wants Nixon to die for killing his
wife.

Nixon's attorneys have argued he deserves a new sentencing hearing because
the state improperly used a prior rape conviction in Texas to argue for
the death sentence for Nixon.

The attorney general's office earlier this year said it was improper for
prosecutors to use the rape conviction, Clark said.

Nixon and his lawyers also said he had ineffective counsel.

Nixon appealed to Barbour in a three-page handwritten letter last week,
citing how he risked his life twice to save two people "and that should
count for something."

He also said he regretted killing "an innocent woman" and said when the
crime occurred, "I was a broke down sorry alcoholic."

Nixon's sister, Pagie Walden of Terry, would not comment about his case.

Virginia Tucker's brother, Jacob Tellez of New Mexico, said his only
regret is that his sister's ex-husband didn't get a death sentence for
hiring Nixon. Ponthieux is serving a life sentence for capital murder at
the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County.

(source: Jackson Clarion-Ledger)

*****************

Governor Denies Nixon Clemency


The last minute appeal to Governor Haley Barbour to save the life of
condemned killer John B. Nixon, Sr., has been denied.

The Governor spent the weekend reviewing Nixon's clemency request. He made
the decision on Saturday.

The execution is still set for this Wednesday unless the U.S. Supreme
Court steps in.

After reviewing all the legal documents, even a handwritten letter from
Nixon, Governor Barbour said, "I found nothing to convince me that
clemency is justified in this case."

If executed on Wednesday the Nixon, 77, will be the oldest person put to
death since capital punishment was brought back in 1976.

He was convicted in the 1985 murder for hire of Virginia Tucker. The
Rankin County jury took just 30 minutes to deliver a death sentence.

Since then, Nixon has appealed to numerous courts including the U.S.
Supreme Court. Last month the court refused to hear Nixon's appeal.

Nixon's attorney, David Clark, maintains the jury should not have been
allowed to consider a 1958 statutory rape conviction during sentencing.
But in his statement, Governor Barbour sides with the courts. He said,
"the courts have reviewed the legal issues and determined that Nixon's
legal rights were protected at every stage."

Nixon still has one more chance. His attorneys have made another last
minute request for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, even though the
court has already refused to hear the case once.

"I'll never feel safe as long as he is living," said Tommy Tucker. He
survived the attack that killed his wife.

Saturday Tucker was confident the governor would deny the clemency
request. He says he was relieved when he heard the news. He also agrees
with the governor on one aspect of this case.

Barbour said, "the real tragedy is that justice in this case has been
delayed for more than 20 years. A delay of this length greatly reduces the
deterrent effect of the death penalty."

"The sooner the better." said Tucker. "They could have done it the day
after the sentencing. It would have suited me just fine."

(source: WLBT News)






CALIFORNIA----impending execution

Schwarzenegger Denies Clemency for Williams


Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday refused to spare the life of Stanley
Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited
execution after midnight in a case that stirred debate over capital
punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row.

Schwarzenegger was unswayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions
from more than 50,000 people who said that Williams had made amends during
more than 2 decades in prison by writing a memoir and children's books
about the dangers of gangs.

"After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the
arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no
justification for granting clemency," Schwarzenegger said, less than 12
hours before the execution. "The facts do not justify overturning the
jury's verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case."

Schwarzenegger could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison
without parole.

With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, Williams, 51,
was set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison early Tuesday for
murdering 4 people in two 1979 holdups.

Williams' fate became one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres
in decades.

Prosecutors and victims' advocates contended Williams was undeserving of
clemency from the governor because he did not own up to his crimes and
refused to inform on fellow gang members. They also argued that the Crips
gang that Williams co-founded in Los Angeles in 1971 is responsible for
hundreds of deaths, many of them in battles with the rival Bloods for turf
and control of the drug trade.

Williams stood to become the 12th California condemned inmate executed
since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977 after a brief hiatus.

Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience
store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery weeks
later. Williams claimed he was innocent.

The last time a California governor granted clemency was in 1967, when
Ronald Reagan spared a mentally infirm killer. Schwarzenegger - a
Republican who has come under fire from members of his own party as too
accommodating to liberals - rejected clemency twice before during his 2
years in office.

Just before the governor announced his decision on clemency, the 9th U.S.
Circuit of Appeals denied Williams' request for a reprieve, saying among
other things that there was no "clear and convincing evidence of actual
innocence."

In his last-ditch appeal, Williams claimed that he should have been
allowed to argue at his trial that someone else killed one of the 4
victims, and that shoddy forensics connected him to the other killings.

Williams was convicted of killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63,
and Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at a Los Angeles motel the family owned, and
Albert Owens, 26, a 7-Eleven clerk gunned down in Whittier.

Among the celebrities who took up Williams' cause were Jamie Foxx, who
played the gang leader in a cable movie about Williams; rapper Snoop Dogg,
himself a former Crip; Sister Helen Prejean, the nun depicted in "Dead Man
Walking"; Bianca Jagger; and former "M A S H" star Mike Farrell. During
Williams' 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors
and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.

"If Stanley Williams does not merit clemency," defense attorney Peter
Fleming Jr. asked, "what meaning does clemency retain in this state?"

The impending execution resulted in feverish preparations over the weekend
by those on both sides of the debate, with the California Highway Patrol
planning to tighten security outside the prison, where hundreds of
protesters were expected.

A group of about 3 dozen death penalty protesters were joined by the Rev.
Jesse Jackson as they marched across the Golden Gate Bridge after dawn
Monday en route to the gates of San Quentin, where they were expected to
rally with hundreds of people.

At least publicly, the person apparently least occupied with his fate
seemed to be Williams himself.

"Me fearing what I'm facing, what possible good is it going to do for me?
How is that going to benefit me?" Williams said in a recent interview. "If
it's my time to be executed, what's all the ranting and raving going to
do?"

[see:
www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/pdf/press_release_2005/Williams_Clemency_Decision.pdf]

(source: Associated Press)

****************

PRESS RELEASE: December 12, 2005 ---- Contact: Edward Jackson

For Immediate Release ---- 202-544-0200 x 302


AIUSA Says Gov. Schwarzenegger Placed Faith in Broken Death Penalty System
That Is Currently Under Scrutiny by Senate Commission

Gov. Must Stay All Executions and Let Senate Commission Finish Its Work


Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA,
today released the following statement regarding California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to allow Stanley Tookie Williams to be
executed early Tuesday morning:

Now that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has made the regrettable decision
to deny clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, Amnesty International
implores the Governor to stay all executions in the state and to let the
Senate Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice complete its work
and submit its recommendations.

By refusing to stay Williams' execution, Gov. Schwarzenegger has failed to
demonstrate genuine leadership on this issue. In his prepared statement,
he said that he was placing his trust in California's criminal justice
system, which the Senate Commission is currently investigating. Last year,
the legislative body recognized the pervasive flaws plaguing the system
and tasked the Commission with discovering and exposing the potentially
lethal errors and bias that have metastasized throughout the state's
administration of the death penalty.

As California's highest-ranking public official, Gov. Schwarzenegger has
an obligation to guarantee that all of the state's laws are applied
equally to everyone - even people on death row. But today, he abandoned
that responsibility and left the more than 640 death row inmates to fend
for themselves in the state's broken system. According to the Santa Clara
Law Review, California's death penalty system is incapable of providing
equal protection because it lacks "the basic safeguards to avoid
capricious, erroneous, and discriminatory application of the death
penalty."

###

For more information please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish.

Edward O. Jackson -- Media Director -- Amnesty International USA

(source: Amnesty International USA)

************************

For Immediate Release----December 12, 2005----Contact: Ajamu Baraka,
404.695.0475 or 404.588.9761


Tookie Williams execution underscores moral hypocrisy of death penalty
system in U.S.


The decision by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to deny clemency for
Stanley "Tookie" Williams represents but the latest example of moral
hypocrisy in the administration of the death penalty in the United States.
Williams, a former gang leader, had renounced his former life and devoted
himself to anti-gang efforts while on death row. "At a time when gang
violence and murder continue to plague inner city neighborhoods across the
country, the choice to let Tookie Williams die sends an unmistakable
message about the state's skewed priorities," says Ajamu Baraka, executive
director of the U.S. Human Rights Network. "To execute one of the nation's
most effective spokesmen against gang violence is to effectively condemn
hundreds more poor, black youth to the same fate."

The decision mirrors numerous others in states where compelling cases for
clemency were rejected without explanation. In North Carolina, for
example, Elias Syriani was executed on November 18 for murdering his wife
despite pleas from the victims - his four children - who told Governor
Mike Easley that the execution would victimize them a second time.
"Clemency, redemption, mercy and rehabilitation are supposed to be
integral parts of the U.S. criminal justice system," says Rick Halperin,
chairman of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA. "But
clemency has become mere window dressing in death penalty cases." The next
pending execution in California will again challenge Schwazenegger's moral
fiber: Clarence Ray Allen, scheduled to die on January 17, is 75 years
old, legally blind and confined to a wheelchair, presenting a threat to no
one. The scheduled execution of 77-year-old John Nixon in Mississippi next
week prompted a former Mississippi state Supreme Court Justice to say that
his lethal injection would be an affront to "the moral values of our
people."

The absence of a meaningful clemency process compounds the systemic flaws
with the administration of capital punishment that have emerged as
consistent patterns over the past decade, including wrongful convictions,
racial bias, incompetent counsel, prosecutorial misconduct and
condemnation of the mentally ill. "The treatment for people with mental
illness should not be a needle on a gurney," says Renny Cushing, executive
director of Murder Victims Families for Human Rights. "Yet we continue to
put people to death who aren't responsible for their actions."

Rather than address these problems, however, Congress is now debating new
restrictions on the right of habeas corpus, which would further limit
appeals for those on death row and inevitably yield new waves of
injustice. "The move to gut habeas corpus shows that our elected
representatives are truly pandering to the lowest common denominator of
violence, revenge and fear," Halperin says.

The U.S. Human Rights Network condemns Gov. Schwarzenegger's decision to
let Tookie Williams die, and calls for an immediate moratorium on further
executions in the United States. "The fatally flawed administration of the
death penalty in this country amounts to a continual human rights
violation," says Baraka. "Most of the world's nations have recognized that
creating a perfect death-penalty system is impossible and have abolished
capital punishment. It is time for us to admit the truth and follow suit."

"It demeans us when we let killers turn us into killers," says Cushing.
"No one is served by a system that is so rigid that it does not allow for
mercy and grace."

###

(source: United States Human Rights Network)

***********************

NATIONAL COALITION TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY----PRESS RELEASE CONTACT:
David Elliot, NCADP Communications Director----202-331-4090, ext. 16


NCADP EXPRESSES DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER'S DECISION TO
DENY CLEMENCY TO STANLEY TOOKIE WILLIAMS

Dec. 12, 2005 -- The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
Monday expressed its "deep disappointment" with the announcement that
Stanley Tookie Williams has been denied clemency by California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

"Today we express our deep disappointment with Governor Schwarzenegger's
decision to deny clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams," said NCADP
Executive Director Diann Rust-Tierney. "If this execution goes forward, it
will be no more than a hollow gesture - a cynical act claiming the
appearance of justice - when the reality is not just at all.

"By every account, Mr. Williams has sought to make amends for the harm
that he has caused and indeed may have done as much or more to stem the
tide of violence than many who say this is their concern," Rust-Tierney
continued. "A system which has no room for rehabilitation, no room for
mercy regardless of the extraordinary contributions that an individual has
made is not a system that we can square with our other values. If this
execution proceeds, we will be saddened but not deterred. This is all the
more reason to push forward to end the death penalty."

(source: NCAPD)

***********************

Group to Protest 'Republican Death Machine' On Eve of Execution


Opponents of the death penalty on Monday night, hours before the scheduled
execution of convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams, will protest
the "legal lynching" outside the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.

An advertisement for the protest obtained by Cybercast News Service states
that the rally will "demand [California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger] grant
clemency," and it encouraged activists to "join us to raise our voices
against the Republican death machine at the Department of Justice."

Nick Chin, a spokesman for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which is
sponsoring the protest, told Cybercast News Service that President Bush
"is someone who kind of rode to the presidency ... basically by overseeing
the Texas death machine."

Chin criticized Republican governors from Schwarzenegger to Maryland's
Robert Ehrlich for their support of the death penalty but added that "this
is something that falls on both parties."

"For a party that says they're a party of the people," Chin said, "there
hasn't been opposition [to] the death penalty within the Democratic
Party."

The group's flyer refers to Williams, who founded the notorious Crips
gang, as "the peacemaker," a reference to a series of books he wrote from
behind bars that encourages children to stay away from gangs and violence.

Williams is scheduled to be executed at 12:01 am Tuesday for murdering
four people in 1979. His supporters, including actor Jamie Foxx and
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, are encouraging Schwarzenegger to commute his
sentence to life in prison. Schwarzenegger held a clemency hearing in
Sacramento last week but has not announced a decision.

The Chicago-based Campaign to End the Death Penalty argues that Williams'
conviction was based "on no physical evidence." The group also argues that
the death penalty is "racist" and opposes its use in all cases.

The protest will "demand immediate action" from U.S. Attorney General
Alberto Gonzalez, the Supreme Court, and "every power in Washington
charged with upholding any level of justice in our society."

Supporters of his execution argue that while Williams has apologized for
starting the gang, he has not abandoned his gang name, "Tookie," and has
refused to help police prosecute members of the group.

(source: CNSNews.com)

****************

Supreme Court Denies Petition in Stanley Williams case


The California Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of habeas corpus
that was filed Saturday, December 10, by death row inmate Stanley
Williams, and denied a request for a stay of the execution of Mr.
Williams, which is currently scheduled for Tuesday, December 13.

The petition (S139526) sought relief from the death penalty judgment in
People v. Williams (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1127.

The Supreme Court denied the petition by a unanimous vote.

Mr. Williams's petition for writ of habeas corpus, filed yesterday at 7:20
p.m., was his fifth habeas corpus petition in the California Supreme
Court, along with a request for a stay. The 132-page petition, raising 9
claims, relies upon nearly 1,750 pages of more than 120 exhibits.

The court sought and received from the Attorney General (AG) an informal
response, which was filed at 7:50 a.m. today. The response is 28 pages,
accompanied by approximately 700 pages of exhibits; the AG also filed a
separate 5-page opposition to the stay request. The court sought and
received from petitioner an 18-page reply to the informal response
(accompanied by 12 pages of supplemental exhibits), which was filed at 12
noon today.

The nine claims raised in the petition for a writ of habeas corpus are as
follows:

A. "Claim One": The prosecution failed to disclose that the shotgun
evidence introduced at trial was unreliable under standard firearm
examination techniques.

B. "Claim Two": Asserted ineffective assistance of trial counsel for
failure to retain his own expert to evaluate and test the firearms
evidence.

C. "Claim Three": The prosecution improperly failed to disclose witness
James Garrett's alleged involvement in the homicide of Gregory Wilbon and
Garrett's asserted responsibility for the motel murders.

D. "Claim Four": Asserted false and/or perjured testimony of Deputy
Sheriff Gwaltney concerning Garrett's alibi for the Wilbon homicide, and
petitioner's asserted actual innocence of the motel murders.

E. "Claim Five": The prosecution improperly failed to disclose impeachment
evidence concerning witness Alfred Coward (that is, Coward's Canadian
citizenship, and his prior prosecutions for violent crimes).

F. "Claim Six": The prosecution improperly failed to disclose that
petitioner was forcibly and continuously drugged while awaiting trial and
during trial with powerful tranquilizers, etc., thus allowing jailhouse
informant Oglesby to manipulate and trick petitioner into writing escape
plan notes.

G. "Claim Seven": The drugging described in "Claim Six" rendered
petitioner incompetent to stand trial.

H. "Claim Eight": The drugging described in "Claim Six" rendered
petitioner vulnerable to manipulation by jailhouse informant Oglesby and
unable to comprehend the proceedings and/or assist trial counsel.

I. "Claim Nine": The prosecutor improperly failed to disclose that he
assertedly promised witnesses Coward, Garrett, and Coleman that if "they
got into trouble with the law after petitioner's trial he would inform the
appropriate authorities that they had testified against petitioner with
the consequence that they could continue to commit violent and other
crimes, knowing they would suffer no meaningful consequences for their
crimes."

(source: YubaNet)

******************

Readying oneself for another mans death


(EDITOR'S NOTE: CBS2 reporter David Wohl is one of the media witnesses who
is to attend Stanley "Tookie" Williams' execution at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.
The Desert Sun asked Wohl, who also is a lawyer, to share his thoughts
before the execution)

I've known a number of lawyers over the years that have represented men
who, after their conviction, were sent to death row. In my 16 years of
practicing law, I've never had the desire to take a capital case. Why?
Because I didn't want to deal with the emotional aftermath of a client
being sent away to die. I had a difficult enough time when clients were
sentenced to state prison.

As an investigative reporter, I've now been given the opportunity to
witness the very event that I never wanted to deal with as a lawyer.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams was convicted of four brutal homicides. Evidence
at his trial indicated that the racial animosity he harbored, in part,
motivated the killings. After he killed 26-year-old Albert Owens, he
apparently mocked the sounds Owens made as he lie dying of a shotgun
blast. While in jail awaiting trial, he hatched a plot, apparently
involving dynamite, to escape from jail. Stanley Williams was a violent
killer with no regard for human life. Will that make it easier to watch
him die?

I don't think that Williams' past will mitigate how difficult it will be
to see a fellow human being slowly be put to death.

How it will happen

Williams will be laid out on a gurney where he'll be hooked up to an IV.
He'll first be administered a sedative, then an agent that will paralyze
him and finally a chemical that will stop his heart. He'll then be placed
into a body bag.

There will be 50 total witnesses to the execution, assuming it goes
forward. 17 of those will be from the broadcast and print media. We'll be
taken to the execution chamber at 11:30 p.m. tonight. We'll be given a pad
of paper and pencil to record our thoughts and observations. After
Williams is put to death, there will grief counselors available for those
of us in need. I don't think I'll need that sort of thing, but maybe I'm
wrong.

After the execution, we'll be taken to a news conference of sorts to
report on what we saw, how Williams looked, whether he had any last words
and how we feel about witnessing the execution.

Ultimately, I know there's no way to predict how the execution of Stanley
Williams will affect me. Will I suffer nightmares? Or will the procedure
be so sterile and devoid of emotion that the psychological impact will be
minimal?

In the end, I think that putting this execution in the context of what
Stanley "Tookie" Williams did to earn his place on death row will help me
get through it. Still, it won't be easy.

(source: The Desert Sun)

******************

Aging, Ill Inmate Is Next in Line for Execution


While Californians debate whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should grant
clemency to convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams, a legal battle has
just gotten underway over the fate of the next man set for execution in
California - Clarence Ray Allen, who has a Jan. 17 date to die.

Allen, who will turn 76 on Jan. 16, was condemned to death for
commissioning the murders of 3 people while he was behind bars.

Legally blind and confined to a wheelchair, Allen would be the oldest and
most infirm inmate to be executed in the state since California reinstated
the death penalty in 1978. His clemency campaign is expected to focus on
his age and poor health.

His situation is dramatically different from that of Williams, a
co-founder of the Crips gang, who has been the subject of an unusual,
highly visible clemency campaign. Full-page newspaper advertisements and
speeches from clergymen, celebrities and activists proclaimed that
Williams has redeemed himself through his anti-gang activities.

In contrast, Allen has not displayed any visible public support, and the
last appeals court to review his case characterized his crimes as the very
type the death penalty was designed to address.

But Allen's attorneys have raised a question that is likely to recur, with
the "graying" of death rows around the country and the concomitant health
problems afflicting many elderly inmates: Is it appropriate to execute
someone who is old and infirm?

There are now 4 condemned men in California who are over 70 and nearly 3
dozen in their 60s. Since California reinstated capital punishment, 31 men
have died on death row of natural causes and 11 have been executed.

The oldest person executed in California in the modern era was 62-year-old
Donald Beardslee, who was killed earlier this year.

Though there has been sharp debate in recent years over the execution of
individuals for crimes committed as juveniles, there is no law anywhere in
the country setting an upper age limit for execution. And although
governors and parole boards have occasionally granted clemency to
condemned inmates because of mental illness, no death sentence has been
commuted based solely on age or illness.

Allen's attorneys maintain that executing him "would violate our sense of
decency, create a shameful and ghoulish spectacle, and serve no
penological purpose."

"Mr. Allen is seriously ailing. For years he has had chronic heart
disease, and on Sept. 2, 2005, he suffered a massive heart attack and
nearly died," said Somnath Raj Chatterjee, one of Allen's appellate
attorneys.

"Ample reasons support allowing Mr. Allen to spend the short remainder of
his fragile life securely locked up in prison."

Allen's lawyers appear to have no stronger argument than his age and
condition. His criminal history is especially unsavory.

Allen was convicted of arranging the murder of his son's girlfriend, Mary
Sue Kitts, who was a potential witness against him in a market burglary
case. While serving a life sentence at Folsom State Prison for contracting
Kitts' murder, he offered to pay another inmate, Billy Ray Hamilton,
$25,000 to kill 8 people who had testified against him in the Kitts murder
case.

After getting out of prison, Hamilton killed one of the witnesses, Bryan
Schletewitz, son of the store owner, and two young market employees,
Josephine Rocha and Douglas White. Allen was convicted of the 3 murders,
and of conspiracy to murder the 8 witnesses.

In rejecting his bid to have his sentence overturned, Judge Kim McLane
Wardlaw of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who was appointed by
President Clinton and who has voted to reverse some death sentences, wrote
that the circumstances of the killings suggest that Allen remains a
menace.

"Evidence of Allen's guilt is overwhelming. Given the nature of his
crimes, sentencing him to another life term would achieve none of the
traditional purposes underlying punishment," Wardlaw wrote. "Allen
continues to pose a threat to society, indeed to those very persons who
testified against him.... He has shown himself more than capable of
arranging murders from behind bars. If the death penalty is to serve any
purpose at all, it is to prevent the very sort of murderous conduct for
which Allen was convicted." Late last week, Chatterjee and 3 other
attorneys representing Allen filed a lawsuit in federal district court in
San Francisco seeking to delay his execution on the grounds that his poor
health has made it impossible for him to meaningfully assist his attorneys
in the preparation of a clemency petition.

The suit asserts that officials at San Quentin State Prison and the state
Department of Corrections "have manifested gross indifference" to Allen's
medical needs. "Among other things, they have cut off prescribed
medications, delayed delivering necessary medications despite adverse ill
effects suffered by Mr. Allen" and have "failed to provide recommended and
necessary medical procedures," including heart bypass surgery recommended
by doctors employed by the state.

These actions have "materially impeded Mr. Allen's ability to timely
prepare an adequate petition for clemency to the governor," and represent
cruel and unusual punishment, according to the suit.

"There is evidence that Mr. Allen suffers from organic brain damage, a
mitigating factor that may support a grant of clemency," attorneys
Chatterjee, Charles E. Patterson, Annette P. Carnegie and Michael Satris
assert. In recent months, Allen has been moved among San Quentin,
hospitals in Marin and Napa counties and Corcoran State Prison, according
to records.

Ward Campbell, the deputy attorney general who has been working on Allen's
case for nearly a quarter of a century, said his office would vigorously
oppose any requests for a delay. "We don't think what Mr. Allen is
claiming would justify any delay in the clemency process or the
execution," Campbell said.

He said it has been obvious that the defense would have to prepare
clemency papers and "it is dubious to me that they have not had the
opportunity or the access to Mr. Allen to prepare a clemency petition."

Citing language in Judge Wardlaw's opinion, Campbell said Allen's case was
"one of the most egregious in modern death penalty jurisprudence."

"What Allen did attacked the very heart of the criminal justice system,"
Campbell said. "I don't know of any case to match it."

But he acknowledged that Schwarzenegger "is free to consider any factor" -
including Allen's age - "that he thinks justifies mercy in a particular
case."

The oldest man on death row anywhere in the United States is 89-year-old
LeRoy Nash in Arizona. He was sentenced to death row for killing a coin
shop employee in 1982, after he escaped from the Utah State Prison. He
does not have an execution date.

Next week, though, Mississippi is scheduled to execute John Nixon, who is
77, despite protests from a former Mississippi Supreme Court judge that
executing an elderly man offends "the moral values of our people."

Last year, attorneys for James B. Hubbard, a 74-year-old man afflicted
with cancer, emphysema and dementia, were unable to persuade either a
federal appeals court or Alabama Gov. Bob Riley to spare his life for a
1977 murder.

Willie Minor, another Alabama death row inmate, wrote a clemency petition
on Hubbard's behalf, asserting that killing "this elderly and sick man"
would "be offensive to every civilized Alabamian."

But Clay Crenshaw, head of the capital litigation unit of the Alabama
attorney general's office, told the Birmingham News, "Just because
[Hubbard] chose to murder somebody when he was [47] doesn't mean he should
obtain some benefit from that just because he's a little older than some
death row inmates."

Hubbard was the oldest person executed in the U.S. since 1941, when
Colorado executed 76-year-old James Stephens.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

***************

Execution's strict protocol -- Cold efficiency and precise procedures
govern the final day of the condemned at San Quentin


The procedure for executing a prisoner in San Quentin, the only prison in
California with a death chamber, is bound by rigid rules dictating when
and how each act must be performed -- from the moment the inmate wakes up
on his last day of life until the moment he dies.

Prison officials say this is to ensure a maximum amount of dispassionate
efficiency in the inherently grim job of killing a person.

"We try to keep this very professional," said prison spokesman Sgt. Eric
Messick. "I can't see it being done any other way -- you have to treat
everyone, especially the inmate, with dignity and respect. This is a very
somber event."

Eleven inmates have been executed in California since the state resumed
executions in 1992 after a 25-year hiatus. 2 were put to death by poison
gas and nine by lethal injection.

If the execution goes through as scheduled, Stanley Tookie Williams will
arise this morning to find that the entire death row of 648 condemned
prisoners, and every other maximum security cellblock, has been on tight
lockdown since 12:01 a.m. He will be allowed to spend his last day meeting
in the prison visiting room with friends and relatives until 6 p.m., when
he will be moved to a special death watch cell next to the execution
chamber.

There, 3 guards will watch him constantly through the rest of the evening,
as he is offered a last meal and can watch television, play the radio or
read. The only visitors he will be allowed are a spiritual adviser and the
warden.

Williams told The Chronicle he plans to refuse a last meal or anything to
drink on his final evening. He has also requested none of his friends or
relatives watch the execution.

"I don't want food or water or sympathy from the place that is going to
kill me," he said in an interview with the paper last month. "I don't want
anyone present for the sick and perverted spectacle. The thought of that
is appalling and inhumane. It is disgusting for a human to sit and watch
another human die."

At 11:30 p.m., Williams will be given a new pair of denim jeans and a new
blue work shirt to wear.

At 11:45 p.m., the first group of witnesses will be led into the room
where the death chamber is and positioned by guards on a set of risers or
a railing along the thick glass windows of the chamber. These will be
state officials, lawyers and people who have asked to watch the execution
on behalf of Williams or his victims.

At 11:55 p.m., media witnesses will be escorted in and positioned on
risers. Nobody may move after they have been placed. Fifty witnesses total
are allowed, 17 of those from the press.

Precisely at midnight, prison officials will make one last call to the
state Department of Justice and Department of Corrections headquarters to
determine if any last-second stays have been issued. That process usually
takes less than a minute, and at 12:01 a.m. Williams will be led by 3
guards into the lime-green execution chamber through its only door.

Space is tight in the 7.5-foot-wide, octagonal chamber, which was designed
for 2 lethal gas chairs but has been nearly filled with a lethal injection
gurney since William Bonin became the 1st California prisoner executed by
injection on Feb. 24, 1996. Williams is a bulky man, so there will
undoubtedly be slight jostling as he is laid upon the cross-shaped gurney,
and his arms and legs are strapped down.

The guards will take about 5 minutes to secure him, and then they leave.
One medic and an assistant then come in and attach a cardiac monitor, plus
needles into 2 veins, usually one in each arm. This takes about 5 minutes
-- unless there are difficulties, such as with Donald Beardslee on Jan. 19
this year. In that execution, the medic had trouble finding a good second
vein, and dragged through a tense 11 minutes before finally seating the
needle.

Once the needles are inserted, with long intravenous lines snaking from
them into the back wall of the death chamber, the warden will ask Williams
if he has any last words to say. Then the warden will leave, the door will
be shut, and Williams will be left alone.

>From behind the walls of the chamber, out of view of the witnesses, a
prison official will press three plungers in succession to send poison
through the intravenous lines into Williams' veins.

The 1st plunger will administer 5 grams of sodium pentothal to put him to
sleep. The lines will be flushed with saline solution, and the second
plunger will inject 50 cc of pancuronium bromide to stop his breathing.
The lines will be flushed again, and the 3rd plunger will send in 50 cc of
potassium chloride to stop his heart.

Once a doctor watching the cardiac monitor -- again, out of view of the
witnesses -- determines Williams is dead, a prison official will write up
a short notice announcing that the execution is over. He or she will push
it through a slot in a door in the back of the witness room to a guard,
who will read it to the gathering.

The witnesses will immediately be led outside, the media going first.
Williams' body will be delivered in the next few hours to his relatives or
anyone else who has been designated to handle his remains.

The entire execution usually takes between 15 and 30 minutes.

(source: San Francisco Chronicle - Kevin Fagan has witnessed 5 executions
at San Quentin)

**********************

Some background on death penalty


The death penalty was established in California in 1850, according to the
Prosecutors Perspective on California's Death Penalty, published in March
2003.

In 1972, both the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court
struck down the death penalty. In 1973, a law was enacted to reinstate
capital punishment solely for first-degree murder with special
circumstances.

In 1977, the California Supreme Court also deemed that law
unconstitutional, but that year, the Legislature passed a new statute.

Voters affirmed the death penalty with certain special circumstances in
1978.

Both statutes have been upheld as constitutional.

A Gallup Poll taken May 2-5, 2005, said 74 % of those questioned favor the
death penalty for a person convicted of murder, 23 percent are against and
3 % have no opinion.

At San Quentin and the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla,
648 people await execution. 14 of those are women.

Of those sentenced to die, 256 are white, 229 are black, 123 are Hispanic
and 40 are classified as "other," according to the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation Web site.

Of the 10 people who have been executed in California since 1992, 8 were
white.

For information about the pros and cons of the death penalty, the Internet
carries thousands of sites.

Those interested in Stanley "Tookie" Williams' clemency petition can visit
www.tookie.com. The official Los Angeles District Attorney's rebuttal to
clemency, addressed to the governor, is found at
www.da.co.la.ca.us/pdf/swilliams.pdf.

(source: Chico Enterprise Record)

******************

Sister Helen Prejean Joins Fight To Save Williams


Sister Helen Prejean has certainly made a name for herself as an outspoken
opponent of the death penalty.

A pivotal character in the movie, 'Dead Man Walking,' she is now entering
the debate over Stanley Tookie Williams.

While Stanley Tookie Williams awaits a clemency decision by Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Williams' supporters and death penalty opponents
are ramping up their efforts to save the co-founder of the Crips gang.

Flanked by actor-turned activist Mike Farrell of MASH fame, Sister Helen
Prejean, the renowned death penalty opponent, appeared on Williams' behalf
in San Francisco Sunday.

She sees an irony between California's death penalty law and the kind of
gang lifestyle Tookie Williams once manifested.

"If someone has killed one of our gang members, don't tell us you changed
your life. Don't tell us youre helping kids now. Dont tell us you're
working so that there will be no more games and there will be peace," says
Prejean. "Did you do the crime? Then weve gotta kill you."

But Sister Prejean says that kind of gang mentality at the state level
must stop and she says she's praying Governor Schwarzenegger saves Tookie
Williams' life.

Meanwhile, Frances Lester prays her son's life could have been saved but
he was murdered 15 years ago in a case of mistaken gang activity.

While her son's killer does not face the death penalty, the retired
probation officer does believe Tookie Williams should die for the four
murders for which he was convicted.

"My conviction is that he should take responsibility for his actions,"
says Lester. "My worst fear is that the next thing is" talk about
releasing him."

A spokesperson for the governor has said he will issue a written statement
any time now. In the meantime, a bill is making its way through the state
legislature that would enact a moratorium on executions while a commission
studies the issue. That would delay any future executions until the year
2009 -- a possible reprieve for some, but not for Tookie Williams.

Williams recently told the San Francisco Chronicle that if he is executed
he doesn't want to invite anyone to witness his death and he doesnt want a
last meal.

He says, "If I am going to die I dont want food, or water, or sympathy
from the place that is going to kill me. I don't want anyone present for
the sick and perverted spectacle. It is disgusting for a human to watch
another human die."

*****************

Williams' Execution Hour Nears


No one paid much attention to Stanley Tookie Williams when he was on trial
in 1981 for murdering 4 people.

Today, as the clock ticks down on his scheduled execution, the former Los
Angeles gang leader is world famous as a Nobel Prize-nominated author, the
subject of an award-winning movie and a cause celebre for celebrities and
death penalty opponents.

The change in status has made Williams' upcoming execution California's
highest-profile death penalty case in decades, producing feverish
preparations Sunday throughout the state and at San Quentin State Prison,
where the co-founder of the Crips was scheduled to die by lethal injection
at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

In San Francisco, a team of defense lawyers appealed to the California
Supreme Court for the 2nd time in two weeks to call off the execution,
while Sister Helen Prejean, the inspiration for the film "Dead Man
Walking," added her voice to the chorus calling on Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger to spare Williams' life.

"They are working out of the same moral framework that a gang does," said
Prejean, a nun who ministers to death row inmates and was in town to
accept an award from the American Civil Liberties Union.

At San Quentin, home to the most populated death row in the nation, a team
of guards watched Williams for unusual behavior and recorded his
activities every 15 minutes. The death chamber where as many as 50 people
are allowed to witness executions was cleaned and stocked with fresh
supplies of medical tape, syringes and the chemicals that would paralyze
Williams and stop his heart.

The California Highway Patrol readied security measures for outside the
prison, where hundreds of people were expected to rally Monday night.
Aides to Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, announced that the governor wasn't yet
ready to respond to Williams' request for clemency.

At least publicly, the person least occupied with his fate seemed to be
Williams himself. He has said he doesn't plan to take the prison up on its
offer of a last meal, a minister or spaces on the witness list for his
friends or family. While he wants to live, he's prepared to die, Williams
said.

"Me fearing what I'm facing, what possible good is it going to do for me?
How is that going to benefit me?" Williams said during a recent interview
with The Associated Press. "If it's my time to be executed, what's all the
ranting and raving going to do?"

Williams, 51, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of gunning
down 4 people at a convenience store and a motel in 1979. He claims he is
innocent, but all the courts that reviewed his case have refused to reopen
it.

Advocates made a last-minute pitch Sunday, saying a Los Angeles man who
could help prove Williams' innocence has come forward. His affidavit has
been sent to the governor's office, said NAACP California President Alice
Huffman.

"All we need now is time to investigate to make sure this story is real,"
she said. "We're hoping and praying for clemency, but we're not going to
leave any stone unturned."

During his 1981 trial in a Torrance courtroom, neither prosecutors nor
defense lawyers raised Williams' role as co-founder of the Crips. The gang
had not yet evolved from a Los Angeles crew known mostly for its warfare
with the rival Bloods into a national drug-dealing organization.

Even though it involved quadruple murder, the case drew scant media
attention, eclipsed by a sensational serial murder case being tried just
down the hall. The courtroom where a handful of friends and accomplices
testified that Williams had confessed to the killings, often was nearly
empty while the press and public lined up to see one of the "Murder Mack
Killers" charged with raping and torturing 5 young women.

But if Williams was treated as just another poor defendant from the 'hood
in 1981, he since has become a symbol to capital punishment foes of the
potential for rehabilitation.

Actor Jamie Foxx, who played the gang leader in a cable television movie
about Williams' life, and rapper Snoop Dogg, himself a former Crip, are
among those arguing that Williams has undergone a death row conversion.
During 24 years at San Quentin, he wrote anti-gang books for children and
spoke to groups by telephone about his regrets for having started a group
responsible for so many deaths.

"He's taken a sentence, originally one without any hope, and converted it
into a learning experience especially for our young and the next
generation and graphically, personally and persuasively given many a
reason not to follow in his former footsteps," said Joe Ingber, Williams'
trial attorney.

Los Angeles County prosecutors and other relatives of the victims,
however, say Williams does not deserve mercy because he has not
acknowledged guilt in the 4 slayings for which he was held responsible.

Williams was convicted of killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63,
and Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, in a robbery at a Los Angeles motel the family
owned, and Albert Owens, 26, a 7-Eleven clerk gunned down in a separate
robbery in Whittier.

The last California governor to grant clemency was Ronald Reagan in 1967,
and Schwarzenegger has refused to grant reprieves to two other condemned
men since he took office in 2003.

If the governor continues that record and courts refuse to intervene on
Monday, Williams will become the 12th man to be put to death at San
Quentin since 1992, when California resumed executions following a 25-year
hiatus.

(source for both: CBS News)

*******************

'Dr. Death' was go-to guy for capital case decisions----Curt Livesay
dedicated 17 years to making the process of seeking the ultimate penalty
in Los Angeles fair and impartial.

His thick finger runs down the small list of California's executed
killers, looking to see if any of the 11 names belongs to someone he
decided should die.

Curt Livesay pauses. He taps a name. It sounds familiar, but he's not
sure.

It's "Freeway Killer" William George Bonin, a former Torrance man who
became the 1st person to die by lethal injection in California on Feb. 23,
1996, for sexually assaulting, torturing and killing 14 teenagers.

"Until this minute, I couldn't remember," says the 65-year-old San Pedro
resident, who for 17 of the past 26 years was the official who decided
which Los Angeles County murderers the state should seek to execute.

Livesay doesn't follow up on the cases he has decided for a reason.

Becoming personally attached, he says, would make it impossible to cope,
and impossible to make another decision.

"That kind of attachment brings in bias, a skewed viewpoint," he says.

"That has no place in this decision-making process."

Livesay recently stepped down as head of the Special Circumstances
Committee, the panel that decides whether the District Attorney's Office
should seek the death penalty in special circumstances cases. Such cases
carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of
parole, but prosecutors can decide to seek capital punishment.

The decision is made after the case goes to preliminary hearing.

Every special circumstance case -- for instance, murder of a peace
officer, on behalf of a gang or involving multiple victims, lying in wait,
sexual assault, robbery, hate or financial gain -- must go to the
committee, where the 11 or so members discuss the evidence in secret. But
the final decision lies with the chief deputy.

The trial deputy submits a report to the committee with recommendations.
If death is recommended, the committee invites the defense attorney to
offer anything he or she believes will offset that recommendation: a
defendant's mental problems, troubled background or holes in the evidence.

In the end, the head of the committee sends the defense attorney a letter
with his decision. For years, these much anticipated letters were known as
Livesay Letters.

The friendly Oklahoma native, who long ago earned the nickname "Dr.
Death," has made a craft of turning the subjective decision of who should
live and who should die into an objective process.

He puts each case into a matrix. Certain factors -- how many people were
killed, in what manner, the killer's relationship to the victim, how
vulnerable the victim was, or if the victim was a child, an elderly person
or a peace officer -- automatically get a closer look.

"Five people dead? I'm thinking right away, 'How does this happen?'"
Livesay says.

If the defendant didn't know the victim, such as in a random robbery or an
innocent person killed in a gang shooting, that case also gets further
scrutiny. As will one involving a violent career criminal.

On the other side, there are factors that can sway the decision toward a
life sentence, such as whether the defendant has had stays in psychiatric
hospitals, a history of bizarre conduct or a low I.Q., Livesay says.

"The presumption is to save his life," Livesay says.

A capital case is the only time a defendant's background matters.

"If you're asking a jury to take his or her life, that jury will know
everything there is to know about a defendant," Livesay says. "And a jury
has to grapple with all that information."

That background usually comes from the defense attorney, whom Livesay
began including in the process soon after he took it over.

"I believe I'm the first guy to actually invite into my office defense
attorneys to give me their version of why this defendant should live,"
Livesay says.

The main element in the life-or-death debate is the strength of the
evidence and where it comes from, Livesay says.

For instance, a key witness to a violent murder might have a bias or an
interest somehow in the case. A defense attorney would attack that
witness's credibility, making the case difficult to prove, Livesay says.
But if the evidence includes a reliable, uninvolved eyewitness, Livesay
was more likely to decide that it warranted the death penalty.

"That's the most difficult hurdle in all of this," he says.

Livesay acknowledges a concern repeated by many defense attorneys: no
matter how fairly he tries to decide who lives and dies, the selection
will always be arbitrary.

However they feel morally, ideologically or politically about capital
punishment, defense attorneys agree that the decision-making process
generally is fair and predictable, and they welcome the opportunity to
take part in it.

"I think they listen to us more than they did before," says Torrance
Deputy Alternate Public Defender Jerome Haig, who has handled about a
dozen special-circumstances cases that resulted in several decisions to
seek death -- although all were resolved before anyone was sentenced to
die.

"It seems to me they realize the death penalty should be reserved for the
worst of the worst," Haig says of the prosecutors.

Most of the time, the outcome is predictable, Haig says. If his client is
charged with a robbery and murder at a gas station, for example, and he
fired his gun once and doesn't have much of a criminal record -- chances
are death won't be sought, he says.

"Nine out of 10 times you have a pretty good idea of what the committee
will come back with," Haig says.

For the most part, defense attorneys whose clients' lives were in
Livesay's hands applaud his fairness. If one person had to make such a
decision, they were glad it was him.

"Livesay always listened," says Torrance resident Charles Gessler, former
head of the Public Defender Office's special circumstances trials.

"I don't know how you can be predictable, but I think they probably tried
for the most part," Gessler says.

That said, Gessler voices concerns that are echoed nationwide in the
heated debate about capital punishment, including the discretionary way
special circumstances can be applied to a case.

"Any kind of enterprising D.A. could make a special circumstance case out
of anything," Gessler says. "Lying in wait? It's so widespread it could be
applied to anything."

In the early 1980s, Gessler conducted an experiment. He compared the
number of death penalty cases given to jurors over about 30 months in the
Pomona Courthouse and at the downtown criminal courthouse.

Of the 10 or so that reached penalty phases in Pomona, 9 resulted in death
verdicts. In comparison, of about 15 capital punishment decisions given to
jurors in Los Angeles, none resulted in a death verdict, he says.

His informal tally shows the administration of the death penalty is "just
as arbitrary and freakish as being struck by lightning," says Gessler, who
blames the discrepancy on differences in demographics of the 2 areas.

When Livesay became head of the committee in September 1979 -- 2 years
after capital punishment had been reinstated in California -- prosecutors
were still grappling with ways to legally apply the death penalty.

To keep the decisions consistent, Los Angeles prosecutors left it up to
one person -- the same person -- on every case.

While other California counties left the decision to the elected district
attorney, Los Angeles County officials placed a career prosecutor in
charge.

It's a busy job, with Los Angeles County criminal courts accounting for a
third of the state's funding -- and supplying nearly a third of death
row's 648 or so prisoners.

Livesay says he has testified about his decisions in about 75 cases,
including that of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the Crips co-founder who is
scheduled to be executed at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday unless Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger grants clemency. Livesay, though, was not the official who
made the decision to seek his death.

Livesay, who had been retired from the District Attorney's Office for
about a decade when District Attorney Steve Cooley asked him to return in
2001, isn't sure how many life-or-death decisions he has personally been
involved in. Perhaps 2,000, he estimates.

Since 1977, prosecutors in Los Angeles County have filed about 3,870
special circumstances cases. Death was sought in about 1-in-4 of those
cases.

Livesay, who plans to retire sometime early next year, says he knows how
difficult it is to persuade a jury to sentence someone to die. It's
equally tough for prosecutors to make such weighty judgments.

But he downplays his own personal role.

At the D.A.'s Office, he says, "I just happened to be the guy at the
time."

(source : The Daily Breeze

****************

Death penalty foes appeal for Williams' life -- Inmate's supporters gather
in Oakland, S.F., and at prison


With the scheduled execution of Stanley Tookie Williams approaching and no
word from the governor on Williams' clemency request, prominent death
penalty opponents gathered in San Francisco on Sunday to make final
appeals for the gang co-founder's life.

Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Sister Helen Prejean, whose
work against the death penalty inspired her book and a movie, both called
"Dead Man Walking," spoke during an American Civil Liberties Union event
at the San Francisco Marriott Hotel. They said that executing Williams
would destroy one of California's most effective advocates for keeping
children out of gangs.

"Williams is a living example of rehabilitation, the power of renouncing
violence in a violent world," Leno said. "Williams' voice is saving lives
daily."

Williams' supporters characterize him as a reformed man who has denounced
gang life and written children's books warning youth about its dangers.

Williams, convicted of murdering four people in two incidents in 1979, is
scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to decide today whether to grant
clemency to Williams, a co-founder of the notorious Crips gang.

Schwarzenegger could commute the death row inmate's sentence to life in
prison without parole.

Prejean called the possible execution of Williams "ironic," saying that
ignoring his reformed life would be resorting to the same eye-for-an-eye
justice used by gangs.

"'Don't tell us you changed your life. Don't tell us you are helping the
children. We have to kill you,'" she said, characterizing the state's
response to Williams' appeals. "They're working out of the same moral
framework as the gangs."

Supporters of Williams also gathered in Oakland, where Barbara Becnel of
the Save Tookie Williams campaign joined Oakland City councilwoman Desley
Brooks at Oakland City Hall on Sunday evening.

Outside the entrance to San Quentin State Prison on Sunday afternoon, 2
teenagers sold copies of laminated poems dedicated to Williams.

Pro-clemency signs and posters left by participants in vigils in recent
weeks rested near the check-in for people visiting inmates.

"I e-mailed the governor saying we recycle plastic, we recycle glass, and
we reform it and put it into something better and useful," said Carma
Helzer of Contra Costa County, who was visiting her son, an inmate
convicted in 2004 with his brother in five homicides. "Why throw away a
human life when it's being useful?"

Two anti-clemency protesters, a mother and her daughter, stood in front of
the prison holding signs that read: "No Mercy for his victims. No Mercy
for him!" and "Remember his victims."

"Those who support Williams have no idea what families go through when
someone is murdered," said Gloria Bucol-Bachrach of Fremont, who said her
19-year-old son was shot and killed by a gang member at a concert in
Oakland 25 years ago.

"To be awakened at 3 a.m. by the coroner to find out my son was murdered
-- that was the worst moment of my life," Bucol said.

Supporters of Williams said executing him will send a message to criminals
and people involved in gangs that the state does not value redemption.
They maintain that if clemency is not granted, the state will be executing
a very different man than the one who was convicted of murder 25 years
ago.

"The death penalty is not about redemption," Prejean said. "It's about
freeze-framing a person in the worst act of their life."

(source: San Francisco Chronicle)





******************

Gov. Taking His Time to Make Right Decision


As this is being written Sunday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still has not
announced his life-or-death verdict on Stanley Tookie Williams. And that
could mean several things.

It certainly means he is not rushing his decision, but using practically
all the time available. Like governors before him, Schwarzenegger wants to
be absolutely sure on this. No haunting doubts, no sleepless nights.

And he needs to be able to explain his action, in detail - not only to a
public that supports capital punishment but also to family and Hollywood
friends who oppose it.

"You just have to have an open mind," Schwarzenegger told reporters
Friday, speaking of clemency decisions generally. "They are very heavy
responsibilities."

As for Williams, he added, "I am studying the whole thing, reading a lot -
doing all the research on it so we make the right decision."

Former Gov. Gray Davis, who allowed five murderers to be executed on his
watch, says that "clemency decisions were the hardest I had to make. I
wanted to satisfy myself there was no question of guilt. I'd go through
every sheet of paper in the file. And those files were thick as city
phonebooks."

Will Schwarzenegger refuse to block Williams' scheduled execution in San
Quentin's death chamber one minute after midnight tonight? Or will he
spare the quadruple murderer by commuting his sentence to life in prison?

It could be that no news from the governor since Thursday's clemency
hearing has been good news for Williams. The delay might mean that
Schwarzenegger is agonizing and on the verge of granting clemency. Maybe
this decision has been tougher than expected.

But I'd still be very surprised if Schwarzenegger issued California's 1st
death row commutation in 38 years, dating back to Gov. Ronald Reagan.

For one thing, here's a coldblooded killer who's begging for mercy while
refusing to admit his guilt. He isn't expressing any remorse for blowing
away four innocent, helpless people with a shotgun in two cheap robberies
26 years ago.

In recent years on death row, Williams has co-written some anti-gang
children's books and preached against gang thuggery. But co-founding the
bloody Crips, as he does admit, is not why a jury sentenced Williams to
death. It was for murdering a young father of two and an elderly couple
along with their daughter.

Williams maintains his innocence, but rather weakly, because the evidence
against him is strong. It has been upheld by appellate courts.

This makes it tough on a governor weighing clemency: The condemned man
won't say he's sorry for killing his victims. And there's no real doubt of
his guilt.

"Clemency is very difficult to earn," says former Gov. Pete Wilson, who
permitted five killers to be executed. "If you've been guilty of a brutal
murder, it seems to me you're called upon to pay for it with your life.

"There is a very slippery slope that would encourage simulated redemption
and good works to escape that penalty."

Another reason clemency would be surprising is this: If there is one thing
Schwarzenegger seems to firmly believe in, it is that a governor should
follow the people's will.

Californians in 1978 voted to reinstate capital punishment, fitting it
with new Supreme Court guidelines. And they still overwhelmingly favor it.

Schwarzenegger probably isn't consciously pondering the political
ramifications of his decision, but he is aware of public support for the
death penalty. The last survey by the Field Poll on capital punishment, in
March 2004, found that 68% of California voters favored it. That included
54% of Democrats and 87% of Republicans.

Historically, Californians' support for the death penalty has ebbed and
flowed. In 1956, 49% favored it; in 1971, 58%; in 1985, 83%; in 1997, 74%.
Same poll question, different events in the news.

One event that softened support nationally for capital punishment was
Illinois Gov. George Ryan's granting clemency to all 167 death row inmates
in 2003. The Republican asserted that Illinois' judicial system was flawed
in determining guilt and who among the guilty should die. That raised
doubts everywhere.

But California is not Illinois. This state has extraordinary safeguards.
Nobody can cite an innocent person's ever being executed here in modern
times.

A candidate for statewide office - especially governor - is still better
off supporting the death penalty. Schwarzenegger does. So do both
Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls: Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller
Steve Westly.

If Schwarzenegger were to grant clemency to Williams, says Republican
consultant Kevin Spillane, "he'd dramatically lose support from
conservatives. And he wouldn't make up for it with new support from
liberals or Crips gang members."

The governor must have pleased conservatives last week, however, by
appointing a raft of judges with prosecution backgrounds, including a new
state Supreme Court justice, Carol A. Corrigan.

One result of dragging out his decision - if Schwarzenegger does deny
clemency - is that there'll be less time for Williams' attorneys to file
last-ditch court motions seeking a stay of execution.

The delay already may have meant less worry time for prison officials
about security. Normally, San Quentin's roughly 6,000 inmates are "locked
down" - confined to their cells - for 24 hours before an execution. But
because of rumblings about violence if the gang icon isn't spared, a
quicker decision might have required a weekend lock-down.

In the end, the public won't care how much time Schwarzenegger takes to
render his verdict - only that he gets it right.

(source: Los Angeles Times)

*********************

Williams' Supporters: Witness Has Surfaced


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 4 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 one 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)

*****************

W.W.S.D. (What Will Schwarzenegger Do?)


Back in May, the first thing I ever wrote for the Huffington Post was on
the fate of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. I'm hoping that what I write here
tonight will not be one of my last posts on him.

Back in May I had no idea that so much global attention would shine on the
fate of one man.

I also had no idea that capital punishment would still be such a divisive
issue in a civilized, Western democracy.

The right-wing hate radio yahoos just don't seem to get it. They claim
that only out-of-touch limousine liberals, Hollywood (read gay, Jewish,
commie) and the NAACP-Amnesty-ACLU cabal care to keep Mr. Williams alive.
What they dont get is that those protesters in front of San Quentin,
overwhelmingly black, come from the very neighborhoods poisoned by the
evil that Mr. Williams is responsible for. They understand that he serves
them better alive, preaching to all who will listen that gang life
destroys. If you live in a gang-infested neighborhood you already know
death well. About a murder a day occurs in South Central LA every day of
the year. Nobody needs to see another dead black man to know that gang
life leads to death, either by the police, the state, or, more likely, by
a rival gangmember. Mr. Williams' conversion, as the general, not just a
soldier, is a powerful tool in a desperate war. His own community realizes
that and asks the Governor to let him keep working behind bars.

All the evidence in the case against Mr. Williams is circumstantial and
all of the witnesses against him suspect (and felons themselves, the key
witness currently in jail in Canada for armed robbery). Robert Clark, a
black man convicted of rape in Georgia was released only last week after
twenty-three years in jail for a crime that DNA evidence proved he didnt
commit. Even if Mr. Williams had not turned his life around in prison
there is still enough reasonable doubt surrounding his case to lock him up
forever instead of killing him.

Though the Williams case has been much in the news, one group has been
noticeably silent. Conservative evangelical Christians and their much
touted "Culture of Life" have said hardly a word about him. There might be
great debate at whether life begins at conception or several weeks after
but there is absolutely no debate whatsoever that life ends after a 50 ccs
of potassium chloride are injected into your veins, stopping your heart.
The Vatican, at least, is consistently pro-life, both anti-abortion and
anti-capital punishment. Some right-wing American Evangelicals, however,
like to torture the crystal clear teachings of the New Testament to
somehow make it all right for the state to kill. I guess they skip over
passages like this:

Matthew 5:38-41 -- You have heard it was said, "An eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth." But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if
anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone
wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if
anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the 2nd mile.

Luke 6:27, 37 -- Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless
those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.... Do not judge, and
you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

W.W.J.D.? You dont even have to ask.

Though I have not been a fan of Governor Schwarzenegger I have been
encouraged by the thoroughness and the seriousness with which he seems to
be deliberating this case. Another governor, this one from Texas, was
asked on a right-wing radio program what were the last words of a woman,
Karla Faye Tucker, before his state executed her. That governor
sadistically affected a woman's voice to mock the 23-year-old born-again
and whined, "Please dont kill me!" Now hes our President.

And by the way, here are Ms. Tucker's real final words:

"I would like to say to all of you, the Thornton family and Jerry Dean's
family that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this."

"Baby, I love you. Ron, give Peggy a hug for me. Everybody has been so
good to me. I love all of you very much. I'm going to be face-to-face with
Jesus now."

Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I
love all of you very much. I will see you all when you get there. I will
wait for you."

************************

Tookie Williams - On the Killing Floor


What does the US have in common with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia? All 4
countries support the death penalty. And, account for most of the worlds
executions. Americas membership in this macabre club is an indication that
the focus of our prison system is on punishment. The pending execution of
Stanley "Tookie" Williams is yet another example of this.

Tookie Williams is typical of the hundreds of inmates currently on
Americas death row. Except for one thing. He is famous. Williams was a
cofounder of the LA street gang, the "Crips." In 1981 he was convicted of
murdering 4 people in two robberies. Tookie has been in prison, awaiting
execution, for half of his life. In the nineties, Williams began
counseling youngsters, through books and recorded messages, to avoid gang
life. He became a minor celebrity. The focus of a 2004 TV movie starring
Jamie Foxx.

Because of his notoriety, Williams has celebrity friends who lobbied
California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for clemency. If Arnold doesnt
intervene, today, Tookie will be executed on December 13th.

Over the past 30 years the focus of America's prison systems shifted from
rehabilitation to punishment. Being "tough on crime" proved to be a
winning issue for Republicans. First they aroused the electorate by
exaggerating the threat of violence. Next they played the fear card. Then
they promised to send the convicted away for long prison terms. Or, to
kill them. Periodically they execute an inmate and turn this into a public
spectacle.

This cynical system worked for the GOP. The public identified them as
tough on crime. They received huge contributions from lobbyists
representing prison guards and contractors who specialize in penitentiary
construction. Republicans benefited from the narrow focus on retribution.
But not the common good.

Americas emphasis on punishment produced an alarming statistic: the US has
the highest incarceration rate in the world. Higher even than Russia with
its notorious Gulag system. One in 37 of our adults are in prison. People
of color get incarcerated at much higher rates than do whites: a black man
has about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime; a white
guy, 1 in 17. And there are other onerous side effects. Sometimes our
relentless focus on retribution kills innocent people.

In January 2003, Illinois Governor, George Ryan, issued a blanket clemency
for all death-row prisoners. He cited problems in the Illinois judicial
system. An investigation had found thirteen inmates wrongly convicted.
Meanwhile, the advent of DNA testing produced a number of last-minute
exonerations. Sadly, it has proved that several executed men were
innocent.

Paradoxically, Americas punishment system hasnt had much impact on our
homicide statistics: We continue to rank among the world leaders in terms
of the numbers of murders - currently 8th. The US has a homicide rate that
is 5 times greater than European countries, which do not have the death
penalty. We have more violent crime than other first-world nations.

Which brings us back to the fate of Tookie Williams. He claims that he is
innocent. He was convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence,
primarily the testimony of witnesses of questionable veracity.
Nonetheless, Appellate Courts determined that he had a fair trial. One
victims daughter feels that Williams should be put to death. A victims
brother says that its okay with him if Tookies sentence is commuted to
life imprisonment. Now Williams fate rests with Governor Schwarzenegger.
Has Tookie been rehabilitated? Or does retribution win the day?

In his bestseller, "Our Endangered Values," Jimmy Carter blames the shift
from rehabilitation to punishment on the rise of American fundamentalism.
He describes fundamentalists as saying to the convicted, "I am right and
worthy, but you are wrong and condemned."

Of course, America is an overwhelmingly Christian Country. And, Jesus of
Nazareth had straightforward teachings about killing: "Do not murder...Do
not take revenge on someone who does you wrong....Love your enemies and
pray for those who mistreat you...Blessed are the merciful." Jesus would
not approve of the fundamentalist position on capital punishment.

Nonetheless, the death penalty is legal in California. That doesnt mean
that it is an effective measure. Or fair. Or that it is consistent with
the teachings of Jesus.

Woven into the social fabric of America is the notion of justice for all.
Republicans, swept away by a fundamentalist tsunami, have changed this to
"justice for some." A subversion not only of Jesus teachings but also of
the morality of our nations founders.

Granting clemency to Tookie Williams would be an expression of justice.
Its consistent with Jesus admonition of mercy to change Williams sentence
to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Sometimes being "tough" means showing compassion. Doing the right thing.
This is a chance for the Governator to demonstrate how tough he really is.

(source for both: Huffington Post)

**************

Reporter: Williams wants his freedom----If granted clemency, 'I will
continue to do my work'


California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will announce Monday whether he will
grant clemency to the founder of the Crips gang, Stanley Tookie Williams.

He was convicted of murdering 4 people in 1979.

On Sunday, prosecutors sought to counter a petition by Williams' lawyers
to block his execution, scheduled for Tuesday.

Newsweek's San Francisco Bureau Chief, Karen Breslau, spoke with Williams
Friday night. CNN's Fredricka Whitfield asked her about that 15-minute
conversation.

WHITFIELD: How did he sound?

BRESLAU: Very tired, stressed, I would say. And what was interesting to me
is that he's a very soft-spoken man. He has a very soft voice. And I had
to listen incredibly closely to what he was saying.

WHITFIELD: And so how aware of the publicity surrounding his case is he?

BRESLAU: He's acutely aware of it.

WHITFIELD: And is he being very much fueled by it as well?

BRESLAU: Well, he's acutely aware of it, and he's been a very active
participant. He is at the center of an anti-death penalty campaign, the
likes of which California has really not seen for a very long time. This
is a very well-orchestrated campaign on his behalf.

WHITFIELD: We're looking at a live picture right now on the right-hand
side of the screen, where it appears to be very calm right now at the
gates of San Quentin. But it's expected that the crowds will be gathering
there from today and into tomorrow.

When you had a chance to talk with him, he spoke very curtly about his
sense of redemption and why he is deserving of a second chance. I have a
quote from your interview with him, where he says, "I have the heart, the
fortitude and the redemption to fight. I'm not culpable. I'm not guilty.
I'm not a quitter."

So it's beyond redemption. He's actually imploring that he's innocent as
well.

BRESLAU: He has said that for over 20 years now. The jury obviously did
not agree, which found him guilty in 1981. And 20 years of appeals at all
levels, up into the United States Supreme Court, have not been successful
in overturning that conviction.

But he and his supporters have strenuously insisted, and he continued to
do on Friday when we spoke, that he did not commit these murders.

WHITFIELD: And you asked him quite frankly if he had an opportunity to sit
down and talk with, and see face-to-face the governor, he would have some
rather direct thoughts. He said, first, quote, "I would first and foremost
say I am innocent, and if I am granted clemency, I will continue to do my
work."

BRESLAU: Right. And he has defined his work as trying to persuade young
people to abandon the gang culture, which he was in large part responsible
for helping to create in the 1970s.

And there's a big battle over this. The prosecutors told Governor
Schwarzenegger, "Look, this guy is not redeemed, he has not accepted
responsibility for these crimes. Young people on the streets today don't
listen to him. He's been gone for a long time."

His own lawyers, you know, obviously said quite the opposite, that he is a
unique voice, that he has a lot of credibility with young gang members and
with kids who are vulnerable to this culture. So, Schwarzenegger has an
awful lot to sort through as he's making this decision.

WHITFIELD: And are prosecutors right when they say that it's not just
pushing for clemency, to have life in prison on parole or without parole,
but instead that he actually wants release?

BRESLAU: Well, I thought that was the most interesting thing he said in
the interview. When I asked him, "Is it true, as the prosecutors told the
governor, that this is not about clemency. You want out?" And he said, "If
I am innocent, if the district attorney were an innocent man, and he were
in my position, wouldn't he fight? Why shouldn't I fight?" Implicitly
saying, "Look, you know, if I live to fight another day, I'm going to
continue to appeal this."

Now, realistically, appeals courts have turned down his arguments for the
past 20 years. So it's unclear what, if anything, he could present. This
is not a DNA case where there's some missing shred of evidence. This is a
question of who do you believe? And the jury believed the district
attorney, and the appeals courts have continued to disregard his pleas.

(source: CNN)

*************

Death Row Clemency Is Much Rarer These Days----Traditionally, a Prisoner's
Claims of Redemption Have Not Prompted Clemency


In the heyday of the electric chair 60 years ago, execution was not so
certain as it is today.

Then, as many as 20 % of condemned prisoners had their sentences commuted
to life in prison.

"Traditionally, clemency has been associated with mercy or grace," said
Austin Sarat, a law professor at Amherst College.

Even Charles Manson, one of the most notorious murderers in America, was
granted clemency in 1972 when the California death penalty was declared
unconstitutional.

Political Liability?

Now, with 2/3 of the country supporting capital punishment, clemency is
rare and, as much as anything, a political liability.

"Clemency can be seen, when it's exercised by a governor, as a sign of
weakness or not being tough on one of the country's great social issues,"
said Kermit Hall, a legal scholar who is president of the University at
Albany, State University of New York.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said he's keeping an open mind
about Stanley "Tookie" Williams, convicted in 1981 of murdering 4 people.

"That's what you do," Schwarzenegger said. "But they are very heavy
responsibilities."

Every governor is shadowed by the political ghost of Willie Horton, the
murderer whose furlough was famously used in the 1988 presidential
campaign to paint then-Gov. Michael Dukakis, D-Mass., as soft on crime.

Since 1976, only 230 death sentences have been commuted to life -- 167 of
those in a single day when former Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared the
death penalty "arbitrary and capricious."

Not one sentence has been commuted because the condemned is reformed or
redeemed by good works, as claimed by Tookie Williams, who wrote 9 books
discouraging children from a life in gangs.

"If governors granted clemency petitions on the basis of redemption, you'd
have many death row inmates who suddenly find themselves redeemed," Sarat
said.

In 1998, then-Gov. George Bush of Texas said he could not judge the
sincerity of Karla Faye Tucker, who said she found God on death row. Bush
said he would leave judgement to that same god, and allowed her execution.

If his sentence is not commuted, Tookie Williams is scheduled to die by
lethal injection early Tuesday.

(source: ABC News)