Whats the deal about this Tookie Williams guy?

[prophet]

Everyone gets personal attacks for everything here. The fault lies in all of us. I did not see you ripping some other people on this thread for the vitriolic comments obviously designed to provoke angry responses. I would not mind more civil discourse,but if you give people anonymity and voice, they go buck wild. Try to dole out your disgust for personal attacks on both sides though...

please respond to every post on every thread there is ..... just to make everything equal and all

[nelms]

I am pro-death penalty, but I have some real problems with killing Tookie. If our justice system is designed to turn people into functioning citizens, hell, very few of us could write quality children's books. Of course there is more to being a good citizen than that, this is a difficult case that goes beyond politics (at least it should, left bashers ) and should make us ask questions about whether we can prove someone has "turned it around" in prison, and if that is enough to let them go free.

I love how some people started off with religious accusations. Classic stuff.

Our justice system isn't designed to rehabilitate death row inmates. It's meant to house them until it's time for them to die. Unfortunately in this case, and in so many other death penalty cases, the appeals process is too long and drawn out. No one ever talks about the hell the victims have to go through waiting for justice to be carried out.

It's all a moot point anyway. He'll be dead in 4 hours.

[Winslowalrob]

Our justice system isn't designed to rehabilitate death row inmates. It's meant to house them until it's time for them to die. Unfortunately in this case, and in so many other death penalty cases, the appeals process is too long and drawn out. No one ever talks about the hell the victims have to go through waiting for justice to be carried out.

It's all a moot point anyway. He'll be dead in 4 hours.

A point well taken, I said IF, but clearly our justice system is under a different directive in the case of the death penalty. But yeah, I was kind of wrong.

[Winslowalrob]

please respond to every post on every thread there is ..... just to make everything equal and all

Haha, I was not bemoaning the personal attacks and the lack of maturity of the board. That was you buddy. And I do not see the corellation between what I said and your coment. Respond to every post on every thread? Explain.

[nelms]

A point well taken, I said IF, but clearly our justice system is under a different directive in the case of the death penalty. But yeah, I was kind of wrong.

That may be a first in the Tailgate forum - someone admitting they were wrong. Kudos to you. :cool:

[DeanCollins]

I said IF, but...... I was kind of wrong.

like in "kind of pregnant" or more like as in "kind of stupid" :laugh:

[prophet]

Haha, I was not bemoaning the personal attacks and the lack of maturity of the board. That was you buddy. And I do not see the corellation between what I said and your coment. Respond to every post on every thread? Explain.

think about what you said... and what I said... ,and the world is round. :whoknows:

[zoony]

Tookie should live, but not because he's a stand up guy or has turned his life around ( )

He should live because there should be no death penalty

[SonnyRules]

Arnold didn't decide his fate--a jury, followed by numerous courts of review did. Arnold just had the good sense to understand not to replace his judgement for all of theirs.

[nelms]

Arnold didn't decide his fate--a jury, followed by numerous courts of review did. Arnold just had the good sense to understand not to replace his judgement for all of theirs.

Very good point.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Spaceman Spiff.... if anyone was offended by this... they need a bottle put in their mouths. While I don't quite understand what you meant. Its still about crazy the personal attacks you took for this statement. Grow up people!

Simple.

People want to put religion (hows that? equal opportunity offender here) down, yet they want to draw aspects from it such as forgiveness and repentance when they see fit, when it fits some hollywood cause...Mumia Abu Jamal, Tookie...all of a sudden these self righteous hollywood stars who put religion down want to act like a God and dish out pardons?

Yet they'll put peoples belief systems down at the drop of a hat.

[Winslowalrob]

That may be a first in the Tailgate forum - someone admitting they were wrong. Kudos to you. :cool:

I've done it before, but keep that on the DL.

[Winslowalrob]

like in "kind of pregnant" or more like as in "kind of stupid" :laugh:

Kind of stupid. Only half stupid. I hope.

[Winslowalrob]

Simple.

People want to put religion (hows that? equal opportunity offender here) down, yet they want to draw aspects from it such as forgiveness and repentance when they see fit, when it fits some hollywood cause...Mumia Abu Jamal, Tookie...all of a sudden these self righteous hollywood stars who put religion down want to act like a God and dish out pardons?

Yet they'll put peoples belief systems down at the drop of a hat.

The same could be said of religious people too.

[Sarge]

Tick, tock. Tick, tock

[Cdowwe]

Tick, tock. Tick, tock

I was thinking the same thing Sarge.

[Johnny Punani2]

In a little over 2 1/2hrs Tookie is gunna have a lot of explaining to do. Pretty scary...

[prophet]

Arnold just said tookie "you've just been terminated" :doh:

[Thiebear]

If you dont read the link in the reply below: You really should stop talking about it.

Any discussion based in ignorance will not go very far.

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1935578&postcount=39

[DeanCollins]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/13395685.htm

Posted on Tue, Dec. 13, 2005

Stanley"Tookie" Williams executed

By John Simerman and Kiley Russell

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

SAN QUENTIN STATE PRISON - Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed by lethal injection early this morning, ending an emotionally charged campaign to spare the co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang.

Williams, 51, was pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m. after spending nearly half his life on death row.

During the process to inject him with the lethal combination of drugs, Williams appeared frustrated when the prison staff seemed to have difficulty inserting an IV into his left arm.

He tried to keep his head raised to look at his supporters, who mouthed, "I love you" and "God bless you" through the glass. When they were leaving the execution chamber, three of his supporters lifted their fists in a salute and yelled, "The state of California just killed an innocent man."

At that point, the stepmother of one of Williams' victims, Lora Owens, broke down in tears.

Williams was convicted of four 1979 shotgun murders and became the 12th California inmate executed in the modern death-penalty era.

His death, carried out in the prison's 67-year-old, lime-green gas chamber, followed a flurry of eleventh-hour appeals to state and federal courts.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Williams in a five-page written statement issued at 12:30 p.m. Monday, shortly after a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Williams' request for reprieve. The U.S. Supreme Court later rejected his final appeal.

Twice Monday evening Schwarzenegger refused to postpone the lethal injection.

Williams, who initially declined to invite witnesses to his execution, changed his mind about 6:30 p.m. and named five people, whom the California Department of Corrections refused to identify.

Fifty people observed Williams' death, including 17 reporters.

Williams spent his final hours with Department of Corrections staff in a 45-foot-square "death watch cell" adjacent to the execution chamber. He read from a stack of 50 to 75 letters offering solace from well-wishers from as far away as Italy and Israel.

He did not ask for his own spiritual adviser, but Williams earlier Monday visited with six people, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

He declined to request a final meal but was offered the prison's meal of the day: chili macaroni, green beans, a roll and iced tea.

"He's been very calm, very cooperative," said department spokeswoman Elaine Jennings.

Williams was 17 when he and a friend, Raymond Washington, founded the Crips, a violent Los Angeles street gang that would spread wildly across the country and overseas.

A jury convicted Williams in the 1979 shotgun killings of convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, during a 7-Eleven robbery in Whittier; and of Yen-I Yang, 76, his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter, Ye-Chen Lin, 43, during a robbery at the motel they ran in Los Angeles.

He racked up several violent offenses in his early years at San Quentin but later claimed to have experienced a transformation during six years of isolation in the "Hole."

Over the past decade, his cautionary children's books and campaign for gang peace brought him a rare celebrity, spurred by perennial Nobel Peace Prize nominations and a cable TV movie starring Jamie Foxx as Williams.

The NAACP and death penalty opponents mounted an aggressive campaign for mercy. Pleas came from numerous Hollywood stars, Jackson and thousands of parents, teachers and youths vouching for the value of his work.

But while Williams apologized for the gang's violent legacy, he maintained his innocence in the killings that landed him on death row. In his memoir, "Blue Rage, Black Redemption," Williams takes credit for numerous acts of raw violence but never admits committing or ordering murder.

In his clemency denial, Schwarzenegger cast suspicion on Williams' redemption, writing that the evidence of his guilt was clear.

"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption," the governor stated in his decision. "In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do."

Jonathan Harris, an attorney who argued for clemency last week at a meeting with Schwarzenegger, chided the governor for not meeting personally with Williams.

"It is impossible for me to believe, if you have met Stanley Williams and spent time with him, you would not believe in his personal redemption," said Harris.

Late Monday, Harris twice asked the governor to postpone the execution based on the claims of four people who have come forward to cast doubt on witness testimony in Williams' murder trial. Harris asked for a reprieve until the Legislature considers a bill next month that would enact a death penalty moratorium.

Jackson, who met with the condemned man Monday, said Williams was hopeful early in the day, then smiled when Jackson told him of Schwarzenegger's decision.

"He knows that he's made a huge turnaround," said Jackson. "He'll be martyred as a force for good."

Williams' prosecution, which featured the testimony of criminal associates, an accomplice and a jailhouse informant, stood up to numerous state and federal court challenges.

He appealed on a variety of claims, including charges that his trial was tainted by racially biased jury selection, that police work was shoddy and that prosecutors withheld secret deals for leniency with at least one person who testified that Williams bragged about the crimes.

He argued that his lawyer failed to seek his own ballistics tests to counter a police expert who tied Williams' sawed-off, 12-gauge shotgun to a shell found at the motel crime scene. In recent appeals, Williams also argued that he was involuntarily drugged while in jail awaiting trial.

Prosecutors pointed to hand-written notes that Williams wrote from jail, plotting to escape, blow up a bus with dynamite and kill an accomplice who would later testify against him.

"This case has been in a perpetual state of appeal for 21/2 decades," said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer. "When witnesses come out with radically new testimony at the eleventh-hour before an execution, it's viewed skeptically."

[Thiebear]

In a shorter version from Fark.com

(All Headline News) "Oh my God ... they killed Tookie" "You ****s"

[DeanCollins]

In a shorter version from Fark.com

(All Headline News) "Oh my God ... they killed Tookie" "You ****s"

:laugh::laugh:

Arnold proves once again why he is

[rincewind]

Simple.

People want to put religion (hows that? equal opportunity offender here) down, yet they want to draw aspects from it such as forgiveness and repentance when they see fit, when it fits some hollywood cause...Mumia Abu Jamal, Tookie...all of a sudden these self righteous hollywood stars who put religion down want to act like a God and dish out pardons?

Yet they'll put peoples belief systems down at the drop of a hat.

Wow, didn't realize religion had cornered the market on forgiveness. Guess i don't have to be sorry for **** now.

[BlueTalon]

Another convicted murderer gone. Yes!!!

Destino, you asked about "finger prints and other evidence found at the crime scene that didn't match him were ignored and not presented." It seems to me that those would only indicate additional guilt for someone else. The key question would be whether Tooky's prints and evidence implicating him were there.

Boobiemiles, you wrote "Please tell me what is Christain about the Death Penalty?" Romans 13:3,4 say "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

The last time I checked, Christians based their beliefs on what the Bible says. Perhaps you think the sword is used for spanking?

[rincewind]

Another convicted murderer gone. Yes!!!

Destino, you asked about "finger prints and other evidence found at the crime scene that didn't match him were ignored and not presented." It seems to me that those would only indicate additional guilt for someone else. The key question would be whether Tooky's prints and evidence implicating him were there.

Boobiemiles, you wrote "Please tell me what is Christain about the Death Penalty?" Romans 13:3,4 say "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

The last time I checked, Christians based their beliefs on what the Bible says. Perhaps you think the sword is used for spanking?

Sounds like you arguing that the death penalty is a Christian institution and that the executioner is a one of God's soldiers. If that is true - wouldn't that be a violation of separation of church and state? If i'm reading too much into your arguement - sorry. Just the way it sounds to me.