SF Chronicle/Tookie Williams: "Measure of a Man's Life as a Criminal"

[Yollam]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/04/MNGH0G2P9F1.DTL

MEASURE OF A MAN’S LIFE AS A CRIMINAL
Questions of redemption, atonement and clemency swirl as Stanley Tookie Williams’ execution date approaches

Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Report
Sunday, December 4, 2005

For more than 20 years, Rebecca Owens thought the man who murdered her father had been executed.

She was 8 when her dad was shot twice in the back with a shotgun during a 4 a.m. robbery at a 7-Eleven store near Los Angeles.

"I grew up being told the killer was dead," Owens, now 35, said in a recent telephone interview. "They told me he was killed right after my father."

Owens didn't learn that Stanley Tookie Williams, the man convicted of the murder, was still alive until she got a call from the state attorney general's office about four years ago. Not only was he alive, she was told, but he was about to be featured on a news program for his Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

"I lost it," Owens said. "I didn't know he was alive, much less nominated for a peace prize. I searched his name on Google and I found out they were making a movie about him too, about his redemption."

Williams, the admitted co-founder of the Crips gang, was convicted of killing Owens' father and three members of another family in a second robbery 26 years ago. He has pleaded with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare him from his scheduled Dec. 13 execution, saying his efforts to keep young people from following him into gang life merit mercy.

Owens doesn't buy it.

"He killed my father, and that will never change," she said. "I think he is a horrible and awful man.




Here is the young man that all the courts found Williams guilty of murdering in cold blood.



It is my sincere hope that capital punishment is abolished and replaced with life with no possibility of parole. But I will not rally behind this man, Tookie Williams. I have no way of knowing whether his "redemption" is sincere or not, but either way, it rings hollow to me.


"To be redeemed, one must accept responsibility for the deeds and not claim to be redeemed to get out of the punishment set forth," Lora Owens wrote. "Williams has declared his own style of redemption for his own gain."


What more can I add?

[Bark Bark Bark]

1. Debbie Loves Tookie

The SF Chronic's Li'l Debbie Saunders--the paper's pet Judge Judy--loves Tookie.

If you oppose the death penalty because it is a barbaric, ineffective "deterrent" applied, at best, arbitrarily by people who don't give a damn if the convict is actually guilty or not, she snickers that you want Tookie The Killer N***er to be released to kill and kill again.

We must not play her game. We should make the death penalty debate about the death penalty itself--not any one person being subjected to it.

[Yollam]

2. I don't feel that I am playing her game.

Tookie is a minor celebrity. If he were ever released, he would be very unlikely to kill again. He'd probably get his own radio show on Pacifica like Mumia.

But if granted clemency, he will be able to try for parole, which I don't think he should ever be granted. Call me a freeper, but I do believe that the criminal justice should dole out PUNISHMENT in these cases, not 'rehabilitation'.

If the death penalty is to be used, it should be reserved for mass murderers like Pol Pot, or major league war criminals like... well, I won't go there, since we don't live in that just of a world.

I think that good liberals coming forward and saying "Yeah, Tookie's guilty as hell and should be locked up for life, but end the death penalty" is a good thing.

Why should the only people who get a say be those who think the only choices are "Kill the bastard" and "Free St. Tookie"?

[Spinzonner]

3. I would be cautious about predicting future behavior

remember Jack Henry Abbott ?

[Bark Bark Bark]

4. Sorry, That Wasn't Aimed At You

When I wrote "we shouldn't play her game," by "we" I meant all the people trying to pretend Tookie's some sort of great icon. Tookie shouldn't be part of the death penalty debate, and the debate shouldn't be firing up right now just because it's Tookie who's getting ready to be strapped down.

I don't care if one particular person being subjected to it is innocent, or guilty of any number of awful crimes; the death penalty is still useless, barbaric, and yes, innocent people are threatened with it.

(So actually, we're in agreement.)

[Yollam]

5. I kinda thought so, but I thought I should clarify.

And thank YOU for clarifying.

And yes, Saunders is an annoying shrew.

[okieinpain]

8. I think he should be a man about it and accept his punishment.

the testimony against him all say that his reason for killing was to not have any witnesses. well he got caught any way so he should just ask for forgiveness and except his punishment. I really hate freaking bullies, and that is all he is.

[rooboy]

6. I think the original post should stress that Williams claims innocence.

Given the history of racism in the United States (and particularly in California) and the American habit of framing black people, I would be more inclined to believe Tookie Williams than disbelieve him.

It's interesting that the media doesn't seem interested in the debate about his innocence, but rather whether his celebrity should redeem him.

[Yollam]

7. I would have emphasized that if I thought he was innocent.

Given his history as founder of America's worst street gang and the overwhelming evidence against him, I don't think that to be the case.

And since when is California "particularly" racist?

BTW, if anyone framed him, it was his fellow BLACK gang members who unanimously testified that he was the killer, not "America".

The reason the media is not interested in the debate about his innocence is that the debate has already been settled numerous times, in the courts.

The celebrity argument is the only one he has left.


I acknowledge that there is an infinitesimal possibility that this thug was not the killer in these cases. It's the number one reason I don't believe in capital punishment - the judicial system can never be foolproof - but I see this man's conversion as an especially convenient and self-serving one.

You say that you'd be more inclined to believe Williams than disbelieve him, "given the history of racism in the US". How about "given his own history as a murderous gang leader", or "given the testimony of his own compatriots, which hasn't changed in 26 years"


Even this man's kids' books sound hollow and pat to me.

"I grew up poor and wanted a lot of things that other kids had," Williams wrote. "Most of my homeboys were poor too. We would gang-bang to get what our parents couldn't afford to buy us. But now I know it's better to have less of the things you want than to get them by stealing, selling drugs or hurting others."

"As a teenager, I didn't know the meaning of power. I thought that by using violence to scare people, I was proving that I had a lot of power. But when you use your power to make someone do something they don't want to do, or to hurt someone, you are abusing your power. The people you hurt will someday hurt you. They may call your parents to tell them the bad things you've done. They may call the police and have you arrested. They may even use a weapon on you."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/04/MNGOLG2JH71.DTL&hw=tookie&sn=003&sc=858

Tookie had a ghost writer for these books, and the way it's written I find it hard to see any genuine feelings of remorse for what he's done or any real empathy for his many victims.


BTW: Tookie uses being poor as an excuse for being a thug in his books, but the man he killed worked the graveyard shift at a 7-11 and lived in a cheap studio apartment, and somehow didn't feel the need to go around robbing and killing people.

[okieinpain]

9. well he never claimed innocent in court, or offered up an alibi.