Los Angeles, CA

People opposed to the death penalty and the execution of Stan Tookie Williams will gather in Santa Monica in front of Schatzi on Main, a restaurant originally owned by Schwarzenegger. The action will take place on Saturday, November 5th at 7:00pm to demand that Williams is granted clemency. Schatzi on Main is located at 3110 Main Street. Representatives from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other anti-death penalty activists will speak to the reasons why Williams is an ideal candidate for clemency and why a moratorium on the death penalty is necessary in the State of California.

An execution date has been set for Williams for December 13th, 2005. In November, his attorneys will file another Federal Habeas Petition that presents new evidence of innocence. At the same time a clemency team of lawyers has been formed to prepare a clemency petition for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s consideration. That clemency petition will be submitted to the Governor of California on November 7, 2005.

Williams is an acclaimed author who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize five times, once by a member of the Swiss Parliament and four times by a growing list of professors from the United States and Europe. With the help of journalist Barbara Becnel, he has made his life’s work fighting for peace from prison. He has also been nominated four times for the Nobel Prize for Literature by William Keach, Professor of English Literature from Brown University. It is estimated that Williams has saved the lives of over 150,000 youth. He has written 9 highly acclaimed anti-violence, anti-gang, and anti-drug books for elementary school students. The Chicago Public School district has created curriculum around William’s book, Blue Rage, Black Redemption.

Williams was the co-founder in 1971 of the Los Angeles Crips gang. In 1981 he was convicted of murdering four people during two robberies and sentenced to death row at San Quentin State Prison. None of the physical evidence in the trial was ever linked to Williams and he has always maintained his innocence. Even the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated on September 10, 2002 that in the witnesses in this case had “less-than-clean backgrounds and incentives to lie in order to obtain leniency from the state in either charging or sentencing.”

On October 11, 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court rejected William’s appeal to investigate the racism and discrimination present at his trial. He was convicted by virtually an all white jury and the prosecutor compared Williams to a Bengal Tiger in the San Diego Zoo whose natural jungle habitat was the equivalent of South Central Los Angeles. The California State Supreme Court had twice censured this same prosecutor for equally discriminatory behavior.

There is a campaign under way to write letters and to gather petition signatures requesting that Schwarzenegger grant clemency and an organizing meeting planned for Monday, November 7th to plan actions to save Tookie. The meeting will be held at Y.O.U. Inc., located at 8417 S. Vermont Ave. in Los Angeles at 6:00PM.

For LA local information contact Danielle Heck from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Call 310-404-1739 or email cenddeathpenalty@yahoo.com.

For national information contact Crystal Bybee from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Call 510-333-7966 or email crystal@nodeathpenalty.org.

www.nodeathpenalty.org