Stanley "Tookie" Williams is executed.

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knitwits1975

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After 20 Years on California's Death row, the gang founder of the crips drew his last breath at 12:01 PST. A plea for clemency was made to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Knowing Schwarzenegger's political views, I'd say they would have stood a better chance of converting the pope to a Buddhist or getting Ellen DeGeneres to date a man. The rallying continued until the very end. I wish to Hell that people would just come to the realization that it will do no good and that it is better to just go home. All the rallying and protesting does is dig the heels in deeper and galvanize the feelings of the opposite. There was even rallying here in Seattle. I'd say all these books Tookie wrote were all just to save his own ass. I personally believe in capital punishment. If one takes a life, theirs should be taken. But this is only my opinion I'm expressing here. Please share your thoughts.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10450624/site/newsweek/
 
While I used to be in favor of the death penalty, although we no longer have one here in Canada, in light of all the DNA evidence that has found convicted "killers" innocent later on I think it's too much of a gamble that an innocent person could be put to death. However when it comes to the punishment fitting the crime, well I don't think most life sentences do fit the crime and I'd be more apt to agree with something like solitary for life, no tv, no books, nothing, just food and medical treatment as required for as long as it's required. To me that is a punishment as bad or worse than death and the Allmighty can make the final judgement when the time comes. At least that way if something does come up in the future that clears a person they're still here.
 
While I believe in the death penalty. I believe that if ANY doubt remains, then clemency is the correct course to take. After the execution, you can't say "oops"
 
Let the punishment fit the crime....

I am all for capital punishment, but also a the same time think most courts are too leinent on people, and nobody wants to own responsibility for their actions.
Just before Thanksgiving here in the Chicago area there was a bad accident involving a comuter train and some cars, something like 17 cars were destroyed when an express train plowed into cars that were stopped on the tracks. Thanksfully nobody was killed or really seriously injured. Much was said about the speed of the train, the rail crossing ect... then the real truth: people ignored signs, traffic, and rail signals, and STILL stopped their cars on the tracks. There was a story on one of the local TV stations websites about a woman who had to be cut from her car, she was upset that the authorities were blaming the drivers for the accident. It wasn't her fault!!
The TV station had a BLOG for the story, and while people were kind and tactful, they reminded her that she'd stopped her car on railroad tracks, what did she think would happen?
Its always someone else's fault...
If Tookie did the crime, then he must face the consequences as well...
 
More on the death penalty

The push to save Tookie Williams was another "cause celebre" for the Hollywood Elite to chime in on. Would they have felt the same way if their family members had been the victims of this cold-blooded killer?

I do not take the death penalty lightly. I believe if there is any reasonable doubt, aggressive research and testing should be done, lest an innocent person is executed. However, I think 26 years on death row and wasting taxpayers' (you and me) money is unreasonable. This scumbag never admitted to or denied the murders. He also never offered any explanations to the victims' families. I thought he was supposed to be repentent.

This criminal was no boyscout. He was not in the wrong place at the wrong time, nor did his gun accidentally discharge in the commission of a robbery. This was a thug that co-founded the violent crips (I refuse to capitalize this) gang. In addition, after robbing a 7-11 store, he was not satisfied with the loot so he marched the clerk (recently discharged from the army) into the backroom and shot him twice in the back with a 12 gauge shotgun at pointblank range. He thought the sounds that this poor dying young man made were funny. He also murdered an unarmed family of three. Wow, and to think...he was a contender for a Nobel Peace Prize. How low has this world stooped to embrace a man hell-bent (ha, no pun intended) to hide behind children under the guise of preventing them from joining gangs.

If you ask me, he got was he deserved. Actually, he was treated more humanely than his victims. I hope he took a fan with him. He'll need it where he's going.
 
This might get interesting

knitwits1975,
if Gov S had called you @ home in Seattle and said "Hey Knit, I need you to come down to San Quentin
Monday afternoon the 12th of December to press a few buttons
to eradicate this Hambone gangsta murderer; don't worry about the air/cab/bus fare we'll take care of that." , could you do it with out missing a beat? As was previously mentioned,
if there is the slightest shadow of a doubt "dusting somebody
off" that throughly is a pretty gnarly construct. It seems the biggest problem with the "Death Penalty" are those two words being used in conjunction. How can it be morally acceptable for two wrongs to make a right? I know that there
could be a circumstance where in the heat of emotional turmoil
I could flip a switch to inject some life ending chemicals;
couldn't handle the switch for the 'Lectric Chair, or the lever for the gallows or the guillotine (sp?) nor could I chop somebody's head off by other means, or pull a trigger,
or lob the first stone, or any other grisly life ending method. Personally, I dislike being "whipped up into a froth"
by these kind of events. Tookie is as dead as his victims now,
hopefully they are all in a place where cooler heads prevail and there's shitloads of Vintage Washing Machines and dryers and round screen color TV's and Mixmasters and HiFi's and
ranch houses built in the midfifties with intercoms and
1958 Buicks and Cadillacs and Chevy and Ford Pickups in the
carports. Also, I would like to share that I have visited
a few inmates in The California Dept of Corrections system.
They were incarcerated in one of the lower level risk institutions; while some people become institutionalized after
a time, believe me, existence in one of those places as an inmate, particularly with a lengthy sentence, is nothing less
than a nightmare. I realize this is certainly a disjointed ramble, the whole Tookie/Snoop/ Jamie/ Jesse/
Arnold clump of shit has been saturating the local airwaves
for the last month or so, I am ready to move on.
 
I am in favor of the death penalty. The prison system does NOT rehabilitate prisoners so that they become law abiding productive members of society. I have a right to my opinion BECAUSE after burying my mom in 1994 and my dad in 1997, the only relative I had left was my older brother. He was 51 and I was 47 back in 1999 when his son murdered both my brother and his wife in COLD BLOOD!!! And like Scott Peterson, he had no remorse except that he had been caught!!! Coached by his attorney, he said that he wished he could "spend one more day with his parents"...but if he felt that way, why did he murder them??. He did it because of MONEY!!!....He needed his inheritance from my parents that was in trust for him with his parents. He started mainlining heroin at age 12 and his drug dealers put the squeeze on him to get paid. When his mother refused to give him money, he murdered her. My brother was out of the house at the time but when he came home, he found his wife's corpse in the bedroom and then my nephew jumped him and murdered him. My brother's in laws, worried about the scandal and the embarrasment tried to white wash everyone and pleaded AGAINST the death penalty. I was only one voice and was NOT heard. He only got 25 years to life and is up for parole in 2024, but I am registered with the parole board and each year, I write a letter requesting that when the time comes, parole should be denied. I have also engaged an attorney who will represent me at parole hearing to see that parole is denied.
I DO NOT BELIEVE HE WILL BE "REHABILITATED"....I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT SCOTT PETERSON COULD EVER BE "REHABILITATED" AND THESE CRIMINALS DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT HAVE ANY REMORSE FOR THEIR CRIMES!!!!
The justice system gives more rights to the criminals than the victims. I am a victim...where are my rights?? My nephew took away the only relative I had left. By age 47, I was on my own, except for a few distant cousins. Where are my rights!!!!
I am glad that Tookie received a death penalty. It is about time. I am tired of all these criminals having more rights than the victims. I am tired of states with death penalties but seldom execute anyone, and if they do, it takes years for the sentence to be carried out.
TIME TO REFORM THE JUSTICE SYSTEM IN THE USA!!!!
 
THE PROBLEM IS......

Please pardon me, as I usually don't put my opinion out on these kinds of things, but the problem with the death penalty is that execution isn't fast enough. With DNA testing and modern forensics, a person should be on death row no longer than 1 year maximun. THEN I'M QUITE SURE THE DEATH PENALTY WOULD BE VERY EFFECTIVE. Why would Tookie get almost 25 years to live when his victims only got seconds??? Mark (Now I'm going to shut up and say nothing more since this IS an appliance site)
 
One of my best friend's sisters was shot point blank in a restaurant full of people about ten years ago - just about this time of year, actually. When the killer was captured, and the cameras descended on their house hoping for the bitterness and vengeance and tears that makes for such good TV, all they got was a dignified statement from the family, asking that people respect their privacy, and that everyone let justice take its course.

Since this was in a state that doesn't have the death penalty, they were immediately tagged as "anti-death penalty" (which they actually were, being rather devout Christians, but they didn't say that in the statement. Nor did they bring their religious beliefs into the issue)

This got picked up by the trash on the AM radio stations, and so they received a slew of vicious letters and phone calls from people who accused them of not loving the dead girl - they even got a few death threats.

Like abortion, politics, religion, sex, and smoking, this is one of those things that few can speak reasonably about anymore, as we as a nation descend more and more into division and strife over non-topics. Not that the death penalty is a non-topic, but when it's lumped in with ridiculous coverage of stuff like "The War on Christmas" and the latest celeberity wedding/divorce, even the important social issues get cheapened. That's the natural result in a country where "if it bleeds it leads" is the motto for most local newscasts, and murder cases like OJ and the Petersons get the celebrity treatment.

I'd just urge people to move beyond the hype and the simple-minded moralistic sound bytes (on both sides of the issue), and the screamers on the airwaves, and reflect on what the death penatly actually means, and what the results are - and I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
 
When there was more of a wide spread death penalty in this country when I was growing up, it DID act as a deterrent and we had less crime in the 1950's and 60's than we do now.
 
Thats what it should be!

A deterrent for people....
I was in a rather heated discussion with some co-workers one day about drunk drivers...
I THINK that every DUI pulled over should be an automatic 30 days in jail, and the loss of drivers license for 1 year. No if's or buts. If you are over the limit when pulled over, BAM thats it.
My co-workers thought I was too extreme. At least that punishment would maybe make people think about it...
maybe
you can't fix stupid
 
Bravo to eveyone here for stating their opinions.

Ross I am so sorry you had to endure the indiginity of family slaying family, and then get smacked upside your head by the system in this country.

We are so busy being mother-hen in every other rat-hole country in the third world, but crime and chaos prevail here.

We need to put the fear of the police and the system back into the criminals.

Imported and commit a violent crime? CITIZENSHIP reversed. Green card revoked. Property confiscated. YOU deported.

YOU ARE THE WEAKEST LINK; GOOD-BYE.
 
I would agree, the punishment needs to fit the crime!

It would have been 10 years ago December 3rd that I was held at gun point by 3 young men. They came to my home at 10 pm and wanted me to take them to the bank. After what seemed like a long time I finally convinced them everything was under time lock and I could not get them any money. They tied me up with Christmas lights in the middle of the living room floor, stoled my billfold, left my house, taking my car and were heading out of the country. All three of them are now out of prison, none of them had counciling, or finished any schooling. Now they are to be a part of our society. In my opinion the only thing prison did for them was make them even more bitter and hate the system even more...again only my opinion. But I must agree with Jeff in his post. We have to stop pussy footing around and hold people accountable for their actions. I see no reason for anyone to worry about what will happen.. get a good lawyer and you can be off the hook in a hour...

After the trial for the 3 young men I also learned that they had robbed several businesses and all had charges of drug usage. And the night they were at my house, all three were high on something.. never did find out what..
 
Toggle,

I couldn't have distilled it down any better myself!!

Ross though I don't know you personally I can still empathize. My sincerest condolences over such a horrific tragedy!!!

Rich
 
I am for the death penalty, but only if we can prove that a person deserves it, like someone else said, you can't just kill the wrong person and say "oops". So DNA evidence is good to have when a person is beeing tried for murder.
 
I feel "Tookie" had it coming-what this monster did to those innocent victims--he never apologized for what he did.I hope the relatives of his victims thought his last noises as he died was "funny"Something is very wrong with "Tookie" if he thinks the sound of someone dying is funny-esp by his act.I am glad this mean,cruel,"critter" is no longer with us.
 
IMO, he murdered those people, he should do the sentence. No questions asked, no excuses like "oh but I've written childrens books". You do the crime, you do the time, as they say.

He knew what could happen when he killed those people, and it happened to him. He got what was coming to him.

Jon
 
Other thoughts-I feel and some other folks think that if you shoot people in the back as "Tookie" did-that's a mark of cowardice.And--in prisons-its time to get rid of the free weights and body-building gear for prisoners to use-Prisoners should be denied access to this equipment-it presents a hazard to prison guards and other prison employees.Know someone who was a prison guard"Corrections Officer" as the state termed the position.I would think the inmates could get adequate exercise to keep them up by romping in the prison yard and playing ball games.
 
I also support the death penalty,if the evidence shows that the person did the crime.There were several instances in Illinois where the wrong people were on death row.Overzealous prosecution? Poor representation of the accused? I don't know.Something I don't get are the people who readily admit doing the crime,and still sit for years,awaiting "appeals".

kennyGF
 
The quote "Let the punishment fit the crime" is from Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, "Crime and Punishment", and it is exactly the term I used in my "Victim's Impact Statement". A reporter who was at my nephew's sentencing said it was even used by the judge who would not lower sentence from 25 years to life for brutally murdering his parents. Patricide is what it is called. The Menendez brothers got life without parole. Why do we have to support these people for the rest of their lives in a country club prison? Wonder where your tax dollars are going?
I heartily suppost Sheriff Joe Arpaio here in Maricopa County, Arizona who runs a prison where prisoners have to WORK, they live in tents, and he makes them wear pink underwear. Sheriff Joe says that prisoners do NOT have any rights. One prisoner protested that Sheriff Joe would not let him receive a subscription to Playboy magazine, but Sheriff Joe said prisoners do NOT have rights. He gets my vote.
 
Sheriff Joe is great! I also support him. I remember a few years back he was asked "Why do you let your prisoners have televisions with only two channels?" and he responded "Well, I want them to have C-Span so they know what's going on in the world and The Weather Channel so they know how hot it's going to be when they're outside working." How great is that?

Like most people here, I'm in favor of the death penalty. If you were willing to do such a horrendous crime that would consider you a good candidate for such a punishment, then you deserve it.
 
All I got to say is...

HANG 'EM HIGH!

I'm for the death penalty as well. BUT, before making that huge judgement, I'd do some serious DNA testing and investigation well before the decision. And when found guilty, bye bye.

They should bring back the old fashioned methods, like the chair, hanging, gas chamber, firing squad (would be perfect for Mr. Tookie). And here's the kicker, they should execute these criminals on national television. That's right, public execution. That's what I think will scare the hell out of these and future scumbags.

Prisons don't fix criminals. Just listen to the Johnny Cash LP "Live At Folsom Prison" on the end of track 4. Turn up the volume and you can hear a new inmate being violated by 3 thugs. Yes, it's really there. No, just kidding. But after all the adrenaline of a JC concert, how many did get violated afterwards.

Inside the walls of prison, my body may be
But the Lord has set my soul free...
 
Revenge is what makes people hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings, blow themselves up on subways, and keep the flames of hatred burning from one generation to the next to the next until no one remembers where it really began.

Revenge is what our enemies do; what barbarians do. Although it is sometimes what we or our leaders do in a moment of thoughtlessness or anger or expedient political hubris, that does not change the fact that it has no place in the life of a civilized person or a civilized society.

The purpose of criminal law is to protect society from criminals. There is no evidence that the death penalty does this better than LWOP (life w/o parole), regardless of the swiftness of the punishment. Given the number of cases where DNA testing has shown that innocent people were sentenced to death for crimes they did not commit, the burden of proof is upon those who favor the death penalty, not upon those who oppose it.

There is no doubt that Tookie was a sociopathic scumbag when he committed those murders and for many years thereafter. He may have been a sociopathic scumbag right up to his last minute on earth for all we really know. He should have been locked up for life and forgotten, to die in ignominy at the time of God's choosing rather than man's. And if he did truly reform himself, no one would have stopped him counseling other prisoners to clean up their own lives while he spent the rest of his in a cage.

But his death sentence turned him into a celebrity, and his execution turned into a public circus, and the families of his victims did not get the closure they expected. All of this was predictable. And none of it made any of us the least bit safer.
 
IMHO

The "cause de jour" folks started the publicity on this one. I personally feel that the date of scheduled executions should be kept inside the prison walls. The murderer should be marched into the death chamber at an arbitrary date designated by prison officials. In addition, witnesses should be prison officials only. A letter to the victims' families could be sent out advising them that the convict had been executed. I don't think the "big announcement" in the media warrants space or air time. I could give a rat's $@% what the s.o.b. ate for his last meal or what his last words were.

These executions bring no joy to anyone. They may not even be a deterent. They do however, bring some closure. At least it prevents a group like the California Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from releasing them back into society.
 
Personally, I think if the system was swifter with the death penalty (of course doing everything necessary to insure guilt before execution), then the death penalty would actually help insure our safety.

With more inmates sentenced to death that would mean more room in the prisons which would imply less "bad" people on the streets that could harm society.
 
I'm against it

I'm actually quite radically against the death penalty. All societies that used the capital punishment have killed innocent people. People like you and me. There is no state that can guarantee that those mistakes won't be made.

Just imagine tonight when you're in bed that tomorrow you will be killed for something you didn't do. It always hurts when you are being accused wrongly for something, doesn't it. Just imagine you will be the one on that table tomorrow. What will be your thoughts when that needle is approaching you? What were the thoughts of the innocent people in front of a firing squad or on the electric chair or with a rope around their neck?

When you're in favor of the death penalty you choose for the risk of innocent people being killed. Just say it out loud: I don't care that innocent people die...

Louis
 
I must say I'm shocked by some of the ideas expressed here. Secret executions? Televised executions? Executions performed swiftly with no chance of appeal? When did applianceville relocate to Saudi Arabia?

The right to protest AND appeal is guaranteed under the US constitution. If you think that's too messy, or makes you feel all angry, that's just too bad.

State administered death should never a cause for celebration. It's something that should be done after sober deliberation, and performed with as much dignity and as painlessly as possible - or we become as bad as the murderer we are executing.

It's been my unfortunate luck to have been present at the death of several people - a few of which were complete strangers to me. It's not a pretty experience: In fact, it's a messy, smelly, deeply disturbing experience. To propose that we should televise death, no matter how "deserved" it is, is just sick.

I think I'm going to have to take a vaction from this site for a while. It's not very Christmasy around here.
 
Louis: Exactly.

There are five countries that execute people for crimes committed when they were juveniles. Iran and Pakistan are on that list; I think China and North Korea are two of the others. And we're on that list.

Judged by the company we keep, I'd say that stinks to high heaven.

We are also the only Western industrialized nation that continues the death penalty.

And it does not produce closure. It produces a false hope for a cathartic experience that never comes. The entire premise of catharsis is based on the idea that drama leads to the resolution of tension, which is simply incorrect on fact. Read the interviews with victims' families. They don't get the closure they were hoping for.

On the other hand, if the sentence is LWOP, then the day you see the man marched out of the courtroom in handcuffs, is the day you know your ordeal is OVER and you can get on with your life because the perp will never ever ever walk the streets again. That's not catharsis, but it is closure.

And in case anyone here is wondering, yes, people in my immediate family have been victims of violent crime, and even of terrorism. I'm not going to go into those details in public. But I will say that war is not the same case as criminal prosecution; and also that the laws of war exist for a reason and should be followed, including the Geneva Conventions and all the rest of it. Ask any commissioned officer about those points.

Brneyedgrl80, if you're saying you think we should use executions to make more room in prisons for other inmates, I dare you to do the arithmetic to support your position. The numbers you will need are the number of criminals that would have to be executed each year to make room for keeping the rest of the criminals locked up for life. Where that takes us is down the short path to barbarianism. Or, to put it bluntly, your position is not very well thought out, and leads to a moral travesty.

If you want to free up prison space for serious baddies, I suggest you go read the writings of retired San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara, who is presently with the very-conservative Hoover Institution. Start here:

http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/bios/mcnamara.html
To quote from that page: "During his tenure [as San Jose police chief], San Jose (the third-largest city in California and the eleventh largest in the United States) became the safest city in the country, despite having the fewest police per capita."

Safest city in the United States. That's what we call track-record.
 
Said: I think I'm going to have to take a vaction from this site for a while. It's not very Christmasy around here

Oh Dan. Dont! We would miss you.

Part of the joy thatthis site (for me anyway) is I get to see how REAL America thinks, cause NYC is NOT in any way reflective of the majority.

I don't like a lot of it, I don't agree with a lot of it. But I defend your/their right to say it, feel it, think it and express it.

I TAKE nothing here personally, and that works for me.

WE LOVE YOU DAN as we all love each-other dearly. I would not give this site up for anyone. And BELIEVE me it was a nail in the coffin of my LTR. (long-term relationship).

COME BACK SOON. SERIOUSLY
 
Race Cards are always Distasteful

The fact that there were fears of rioting due to the execution of a CONVICTED beyond a shadow of a doubt criminal makes me crenge. It is kind of a mother of a bully or brat that will never correct or disipline the child, her child can do no wrong. The kid is never held accountable and usually grows up to be a larger version of his child self. Race is no longer an issue CULTURE is the problem. "TOOKIE" took lives, "TOOKIE" needed to be "took"...
 

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