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

Simply put the man is a conscienceless murderer who killed 4 people in cold blood.

He has neither earned nor deserves clemency or pity. He is where he is awaiting his Just due because of his own actions.

I only wish I believed in Hell so that I could wish that his destination.

Clemency is reserved for those who have repented of their sins and made themselves whole through good works. This scumbag has done nothing. He says he's innocent. Courts have proved him guilty and a liar. Four people are still dead. They would have loved to enjoy another quarter century of life, but he took theirs from them. Nice of him to "write" children's books. After the State kills him, the royalties can go to the families of his victims. Die. Painfully.

You sure make me glad I'm not one of you 'Christians'.

Your God sucks shit.

It wouldn't hurt to read what the post is all about even if it hurts.

"Clemency is reserved for those who have repented of their sins and made themselves whole through good works."

You obviously didn't read the article. That's their point.

First of all I can understand how some of you feel. However, the facts are that he didn't do what they have accused him of. Those aren't just his words those are FACTS. I have done a lot of research on this man and had to do a paper on him in college. I believe that people should be punished if they do something wrong and are PROVEN guilty if they are not PROVEN guilty then how can he be executed. Besides, judgement is God's work...not ours!!!!! So the next time you think about laughing at someone who is having there life taken for no reason think how it would feel if it were you.................

When discussing the future of someone's life in the hands of the state, we need to look at outside social factors that contribute to people taking the path that Tookie traveled..

Our capitalist society creates unnatural circumstances of excess and poverty. People born into conditions of poverty because of ethnicity or other circumstances are forced to choose between limiting factors. One choice is a lifetime of wage slavery at corporations like McDonalds. Another choice is college and possible future in a more favorable career. To qualify for college one needs an interest, and not everyone is given that option equally..

Another option is the path of drug dealing and organized crime syndicate like mafia or gangs. Organized gangs followed the role of the mafia in providing illegal drugs to wealthier communities. Short term individual profit of select gang members at the expense of community stability is the outcome..

Who influences the weapons availability of organized gangs? None other than the feds themselves, the CIA was already discovered transporting large amounts of weapons and mind altering crack cocaine into the SouthCentral community years ago. Somehow the organized gangs gained control of the weapons and drugs and distributed them for profit. Tookie was a part of this activity, though he wouldn't have become as powerful and dangerous as he was without support from the feds who brought the weapons there to begin with..

"Gary Webb, a courageous investigative journalist who was the target of one of the most ferocious media attacks on any reporter in recent history, was found dead Friday after an apparent suicide.

In August 1996, Webb wrote one of the first pieces of journalism that reached a massive audience thanks to the Internet: an explosive 20,000 word, three-part series documenting links between cocaine traffickers, the crack epidemic of the 1980s and the CIA-organized right-wing Nicaraguan Contra army of that era. The series sparked major interest in the social justice and African-American communities, leading to street protests, constant discussion on black-oriented talk radio and demands by Congressional Black Caucus members for a federal investigation. But weeks later, Webb suffered a furious backlash at the hands of national media unaccustomed to seeing their role as gatekeepers diminished by the emerging medium known as the WorldWideWeb.

Webb's explosive San Jose Mercury News series documented that funders of the Contras included drug traffickers who played a role in the crack epidemic that hit Los Angeles and other cities. Webb's series focused heavily on Oscar Danilo Blandon, a cocaine importer and federal informant, who once testified in federal court that "whatever we were running in L.A., the profit was going to the Contra revolution." Blandon further testified that Colonel Enrique Bermudez, a CIA asset who led the Contra army against Nicaragua's leftwing Sandinista government, knew the funds were from drug running. (Bermudez was a colonel during the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua.)"

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1213-31.htm

Tookie isn't innocent, though for the imperialist state that created the situation to take his life while other contributers remain free to continue the cycle of poverty, depseration, etc. it doesn't seem very balanced..

luna moth

I think we could have a system of justice without the need for any kind of protections of abuse. Bush Admirer's final solution.

"we need to look at outside social factors that contribute to people taking the path that Tookie traveled.. "

Fuck that tired silly tripe.

Millions of people grow up in the very same environment and conditions as did this scumbag and the vast, overwhelming majority of them NEVER commit violence of any sort.

This is simply another monster who needs to finally pay a price for his actions.

Kill him.

guideline violation

advocating death.

he's had 20 years of life that his victims were denied. The brutality of the crimes he committed is such that nothing he can do can make up for.

It sends a better message to gang members that if they commti crimes, they will answer for it accordingly. If he is granted clemency, the message is that the 4 people murdered do not matter.

Kill the bastard.

I saw the movie "Redemption", did you??? I have followed this story the whole time. He didn't do it!!!!! First of all if you want the man dead for his involvement with the Crips then he should have been caught and tried for something pertainging to that. But to convict a man for something he didn't do and sentence him to death is just wrong. So when you talk about wanting this man dead make sure you are not part of the KKK cause that sounds like something they would say just cause he is black. Second if you are a CHRISTian then I would hope you are repenting every day!! I feel sorry for the people who are executed and then the damn justice system is allowed to come back and say "OOPS, we made a mistake!" And again I ask you WHAT IF IT WAS YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVED?!! ANswer that people....we have a man who is about to be executed in a few weeks for something he did not do.....How can this not bother you....I'm Losing sleep cause there is nothing I can do...I've voted....but I am only one person.....if you have a heart at all please visit his websit: www.savetookie.org and sign the Governors petition!!! Please help him gain clemency....and to those who don't agree and think he should be killed I guess you're just like those who are out there commiting violence!!!!!!!!

I'm always amazed and petrified by the fierce lack of compassion shown by some observers when it comes to people like Stan Williams. I'm just grateful it's not me who's been wrongfully accused and appealing for clemency.

If there's the tiniest shred of doubt about this man's conviction, he shouldn't be executed. But then, shouldn't the redemptive side to his story be enough, anyway? It gives us *all* hope. Sure, we're not all murderers, but most of us get murderously angry. I don't think we're entitled to cast the first stone; if you do, which Bible are you reading? Probably the same one that stirs up hate against gay people, that supports the war in Iraq, and that tells you to get rich quick in God's name. Jesus wept.

And I guess he still weeps.

...but we all get murderously angry"

This means we are all equivalent to the shotgun-during-robbery murderer Tookie Williams? The difference is, as angry I get at idiot leftists with their moral equivalence and blaming society-white devils for everything, I have yet to kill one. But the day is young. You're right, Jesus wept. But he weeps for victims as well.

You're in good company, anyway, with China, Iran, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia as the five countries who execute the highest numbers of their own citizens. Bizarre coincidence, that.

Why not demand that black gang bangers stop murdering people?

This is the sort of duplicitous moral equivalence practiced by the left... Just because China, Iran, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia have the death penalty doesn't make the death penalty here or anywhere else wrong. Those countries also have public executions... we don't. We also drive cars, just like they do... does that mean driving cars is evil?

The bottom line is this: Anti death penalty advocates have no stomach for justice or punishment. No crime, no matter how heinous, deviant, violent, or cruel will EVER be enough to warrant the death penalty. If someone broke into their home, tied them to a chair and forced them to watch their own mother being raped, tortured with lit cigarette and beaten to death with a crowbar, right in front of them, it still wouldn't be enough. Why? Because it wasn't the fault of the criminal. It was the fault of 'society' or 'their childhood' or ... ad nauseum.... In other words... no one is EVER responsible for their own actions... EVER. It is always the fault of some outside agent, be it society, etc...

This is because leftists don't value individual human action. There must always be a collective dimension to it. They will tell you that this 'holistic' approach is more 'nuanced' than holding the criminal directly responsible. In this mindset no human act is so depraved, violent or savage that it can't be cured with 'therapy' and 'rehabilitation'. Translation: They just need to talk it out. A bit of sensitive therapy and dialogue and these killers will be first rate citizens.

What they miss entirely is the fact that some people in this world are simply wired wrong. You can't fix them. They are what they are. More to the point, they've done what they've done. If they are executed be clear that it is not society that is uncivilized in doing so. It is the killer who is uncivilized. Society is simply removing them and giving closure to the victims. But Leftists are incapable of making this distinction. For them, all people are equally valuable because no individual is worth anything.

Why not demand that the US military stop murdering people?

For Murdering 4 innocent people.

What a great deterint for kids thinking of joining a gang!

Criminalizing gang members for merely belonging to a gang is unconstitutional. The crimes that are committed by certain members is the problem .

Being a member of a group, unless it advocates criminal action, is not illegal or there wouldn't be clubs or associations.

Maybe that's next.

Tookie is not going to die for being a crip. He is going to die for shot gunning 4 people to death.

How are gangs not advocating crime? They run extortion rings, brothels, slavery, and other negative businesses based around violence. They bribe the police to concentrate these businesses in poor neighborhoods.

I'm against the death penalty, even for Tookie, but don't have that much sympathy for this guy. It's just hard to, because gangs fuck up neighborhoods, and he was a leader. Gangs are also pretty reactionary, overall, putting money and power over knowledge, community, and self improvement.

(I know, a lot of radicals see revolutionary potential in street gangs, but I don't see it. I don't see them as having politics. When the mob or CIA come around with a big load of drugs, they don't refuse it. They see a business opportunity.)

Also, on the last post -- he might not have done the crimes he's being executed for. He was at the top of the pyramid in the organization, and probably didn't have to do the dirty work.

Tramp, you don't understand anything.

I'm just opposed because too many people who are innocent are put on death row. The idea of "justice" is pretty hollow when there's a lot of innocents killed, and a lot of guilty walking free. I really don't have a problem with killing (or at least maiming) someone who I've seen kill someone, or would be killing me. Not yet anyway. Maybe I'll soften up with age and increased exposure to the peace movement.

Only an moron would think that Tookie got a fair trial. Yes, he was a gang member and the founder of the most evil organization. We don't kill Republicans foe the death and despair they cause acros the world.

He should spend the rest of his life in prision not murdered by the state.

God may forgive him and he has done great things to turn his life around and the book he written may stop young people from destroying thier lives. He is a pgreat example of change But, I don't think he is a murder!

Only a fool would over look the facts and wish his murder by the state! I will pray for this man. By the way, a life without God is Hell.

thats some bull because he killed 4 people 2 wrongs donjt make a right let the man live.

It's too late to kill him because now he will never be forgotten . Nor will the role of the state and its executors in this execution.

All that is left is to attempt to infer his unequivocal alleged guilt despite the lack of evidence and the snitches who were pressured to implicate him.

All the breast beating in the world as we have witnessed, will do, is to point to to the desperation of this burying of the question of his guilt.

Funny thing about the circumstantial evidence.

That's all there was.

And that itself is subject to question.

The material evidence never pointed to Stan.

I would welcome any links to prove otherwise.

Exactly like the frame up of Mumia.

First of all, almost all evidence is circumstantial. Do your homework and stop blathering on about it. All withess testimony is circumstantial. Even confessions are considered circumstantial. Hard physical evidence is not in any way a barometer of the merits of a verdict.

That said, there was physical evidence. Ballistics showed that the shotgun shells at the scene of the triple murder matched tookies saw offed shotgun.

And you must be joking about mumia. That case has pretty much ONLY hard, clear irrefutable physical evidence.

By the way, do your own homework.

Gone through this many times before.

But for the memory challenged, like you: Mumia or Tookie were convicted on ONLY on the word of compromised snitches.

As for the shot gun shells, where's your link: as you call for me to so often produce the data. Don't be lazy, get your assets to dig up the URLs.

But I'm a giver.

As far as tookie goes. I have no link. All the info I have about the shotgun shell is from various news sources. All recapping the court testimony and evidence. Including, since you asked, KPFK.

mumia's case is a field day of irrefutable physical evidence.

Caught at the scene, kneeling over the dead officer.

The gun in his hand

A holdster for the gun on his hip.

The gun matched to the slugs in the officers body (the oft trotted out claim of the slug being a different caliber is almost laughingly easily refuted upon a scan of the court docs. That claim being made and scribbled on a peice of paper by a med examiner at the scene based on a visual of the hole in Officer Faulkner's body. Thjat was quickly and sumarily changed upon inspection of the retreived actual slug.)

That is what is called a MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE.

there are few people in jail who are more obviously and irrefutably guilty as the peice of human shit that is wesley cook.

That's what he was convicted on. That some crackwhore saw him do it and testified is and was beside the point.

a few excerpts.

a few points to consider.

-The evidence presented against him were shotgun shells that didn't register to his gun, foot prints that didn't match his shoe size, and 4 witnesses that were later found to be paid off by the LAPD.-

-The shot gun that was allegedly used is difficult for any kind of ballistics comparison to be made between one weapon and the shotgun pellets recovererd at the crime scene. Furthermore, the jail house snitch who testified in great detail was given the police file on the case before he came forward with his testimony about Tookie Williams confessing to him. Why would anyone confess in such great detail as the information given by the jailhouse snitch is a mystery. He even described the type and style of clothing of the vicitims. I hardly think that a madman who was busy killing someone and running from the cops would stop to take note of the exact color and style of the victims' clothing. There was another witness who testified at the trial who at the time of the killings, was beaten by the cops until he started "recalling" the "correct" version of what happened. The 9th circuit court of appeals ruled that such beating did not violate any procedural rule of witness intimidation actually affecting the trial since the beating occured 2 years before the trial. This witness was still shaking while describing this event 13 years later. Tookie is over 200 pounds, yet the witnesses described the killer(s) as being slightly built.-

A police firearms expert also testified that he positively matched a shell from the motel crime scene to Williams' shotgun -- testing that his attorneys call flimsy. Two shells recovered from the 7-Eleven were "consistent" with the shotgun, the expert said, but he could not make a positive match.

The defense attorney never had the weapon tested.

****

That's not enough in my view to end a life.

The beautiful thing is that, even though he's now gone, there *is* still the possibility that Tookie's redemption was real. (Just as there was the possibility that his conviction was unsafe.) And you can never throttle that kind of redemption with your noose of so-called justice.

And if Tookie's redemption *was* real, your argument about some people 'just being wired wrong' is, er, wrong.

By the way, you seem to like calling people names like we're in a playground. I might be a moron... but a lefty? What makes me a lefty just because I want to save the life of a man who might be innocent? If you hadn't noticed, left and right disintegrated a long time ago.

authentic mental cripple™ said:

-And unfortunately we don't kill the Communists and Socialists and fascists and terrorist fellators of the Left either, hence the cycle of insanity continues.

Only until we purge the Left will Civilization finally flourish.-

****

This purge sure sounds like good old 'uncle Joe Stalin's' wet dream of a 'compatible' society. Smashy in his Cheney like rage, can't see how his ideology compares to the very enemies he emulates yet despises.

Go figure. I know the CIA has a profound history of 'leftist' purges ( Iraqi, through Saddam, Indonesia through Suharto, Chile through Penoche and I'm certain more than I could list.) so maybe this individual is a CIA proponent or camp follower. All I know is that labor and education ( leftist kind of stuff ) is the enemy of the CIA which appears to be the 'mechanics' of the Wall Street government.

Exploitation is not compatible with 'leftist' ideology, if one whishes to think about it.