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Tookie Dies Tonight

  
  

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Morpheus
18:58 / 12.12.05
So how much of L.A. is going to burn this time? Will we see a gang war?
Better hold on to your PsP for this one.
 
 
Morpheus
19:39 / 12.12.05
They are already broadcasting how the riots that may follow will be handled or not handled. How would anyone with any sense of moral obligation make this non-move unless they want to see L.A. explode into the biggest gang riot in the history of that city. Why would anyone want to piss off the two largest gangs and risk the safety of the people and business owners to make a political statement that seems to only be serving the sick will of a fearful middle American opinion on the death sentence. Dieing martyrs are made and societies in the past have fallen over similar moves.

Eye for an eye...where does that end?
 
 
Mourne Kransky
20:14 / 12.12.05
I live in a civilised country with no death penalty. Here you have to be an innocent Brazilian electrician to be executed by the State.

I can see what you're saying about the gangs being upset by this, Morph, but you wouldn't want the Crips dictating public policy in California, surely.
 
 
MacDara
21:00 / 12.12.05
From what little I've read about Tookie (I did some background reading on the history of LA gangs after reading a book exerpt a few months ago), it seems that he renounced the gang way of life many years ago and dedicated himself to anti-gang causes from behind bars. By all accounts (that I've come across myself) he's done some invaluable work, so by not commuting his sentence the governor has really shot himself in the foot with this one.

Whether or not you support capital punishment, surely you'd want to keep someone like this alive to do more good work, no? Otherwise what's the point in keeping people in prison for years until you execute them? It's not like rehabilitation is an option, is it?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:00 / 12.12.05
Why would anyone want to piss off the two largest gangs and risk the safety of the people and business owners to make a political statement that seems to only be serving the sick will of a fearful middle American opinion on the death sentence.

Well, you've kind of answered your own question. If Arnold commutes the sentence, it looks like he is giving in to Hollywood liberals. He has already made decisions which have alienated him from what is current and fashionable in Republican thought - notably on stem cell research - and needs to demonstrate that he is not a liberal in disguise to his core, right?
 
 
Morpheus
21:19 / 12.12.05
Well you seem to have missed what I'm getting at. If you know that sentenceing this very outspoken leader of a gang may incite violence, and in the past they did much more there over the beating tapes of a crack head, why gamble with police and innocent lives. Who wins?
It isn't like he is going to get out of jail. And the whole cost arguement is bullshit...closure is the same dumb arguement, I've heard them all.
Bottom line, if killing this guy makes a martyr out of him and anyone is killed because of it, it was a bad play.
We will see. Or maybe we won't.
 
 
Kirk Ultra
22:12 / 12.12.05
Does anybody who hangs out in the Temple want to do a spell or put up a sigil to keep this guy alive? Maybe we could all conjur the spirit of Arnold and get him to do one of those last minute phone calls Governors get to make in the movies.
 
 
Ganesh
22:26 / 12.12.05
I don't think Arnie "wins" either way but, as Haus says, his Republican voter base is perhaps more likely to respect a hardline decision - even if it causes riots, martyring, blah blah polarbearcakes - than (what they're likely to perceive as) his caving to the pressure of Hollywood liberals.

So... it kinda depends what's most important to him: preventing/minimising civil unrest or appealling to his demographic.
 
 
A
09:11 / 13.12.05
He was executed a few hours ago.
 
 
Spaniel
09:15 / 13.12.05
So... it kinda depends what's most important to him: preventing/minimising civil unrest or appealling to his demographic/killing other human beings

I hate to get all melodramatic but that's the way I feel. Playing politics with the lives of others is about the most despicable thing I can imagine. How the fuck does the man sleep?

I need to calm down.
 
 
Ganesh
10:15 / 13.12.05
Well, yes, appealling to his target demographic does = ordering the execution of other people. I wonder how a whole load of people sleep at night.
 
 
Spaniel
10:33 / 13.12.05
For some reason this case throws the awfulnessness into relief in a way that bigger examples of similar behavior - the war in Iraq, for example - don't.
 
 
Ganesh
11:09 / 13.12.05
I guess it's a personal thing. For me, it was the Abu Ghraib torture stuff.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:32 / 13.12.05
It was the unfolding story of Guantanamo that was my tipping point. After the last set of American elections I found myself unable to emotionally connect with anything that happened in relation to the US' governance, good or bad because it had been condoned by the citizens. I can't even manage a response to the hunger strikes, I just want the country to evaporate.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:27 / 13.12.05
It hasn't been condoned by the citizens. Even if you take the 2004 election as the closest thing to a referendum on the subject it wasn't condoned by a majority of the citizens.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:28 / 13.12.05
I'm disgusted that the death penalty still exists in this day and age, and horrified and sickened by this particular travesty. This was a man with a violent past, to be sure, but his subsequent reformation and attempts to make some amends for his crimes should have been recognised.

The reason given by Schwarzenegger for turning down the clemency petition is one of the most warped things I've ever seen: "Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case...Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

Hideous.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
15:54 / 13.12.05
It hasn't been condoned by the citizens

It was condoned by citizens who either voted for the government or didn't vote at all and those citizens amounted to enough for re-election. Thus I think "condoned by the citizens" is a fair comment. Note I didn't say condoned by every citizen.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
16:28 / 13.12.05
There's a fairly large gulf of meaning between "the citizens" and "some of the citizens." Can you honestly not see that?
 
 
■
17:13 / 13.12.05
Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption

Bwuh? OK, so we can't allow him to live unless he admits and apologises. In which case he's guilty an we have to kill him.


There's a funny noise coming from this grave marked "J Heller".
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:20 / 13.12.05
My thoughts exactly, Cube.
 
 
*
18:33 / 13.12.05
I feel this really ought to be an issue about US policy and the injustice system, not about one person, about whom we really know nothing. None of us is qualified to judge whether he repented, whether his speaking out against gang violence went any way towards reparations, or anything. What we are qualified to comment on is whether the death penalty is morally acceptable or not. So can we (meaning mostly bloggers and the press) quit making it about why Williams should have or should not have been an exception to the policy of execution, and actually address whether there should be a policy of execution in the first place?

Of which, I'm not exactly in the "liberal orthodoxy." I think the prison system is foul enough that for myself I would persist in viewing death as a mercy, and I suspect this clouds my judgment. Worse, I suspect that the US prison system is going to get more and more Abu Ghraiblike, and I'm loath to end the death penalty for that reason. I'm sure this is very irrational.
 
 
skolld
18:41 / 13.12.05
Not to be on Arnie's side here, but he's not the one who sentenced Tookie to death. The courts convicted him and that conviction has stood since the early 80's. The death penalty may be an unfortunate thing (I'm undecided on that score myself) but when you kill four people while robbing them, not too mention founding one of the bloodiest gangs around, you have to reap the consequences of those actions, reformed or not. I can't disagree with the governor's decision. It isn't his job to second guess the courts. I'm not a big of Arnie but on this matter I can at least understand his reasons.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
20:11 / 13.12.05
But there's no way to measure whether through the work he'd done while on Death Row Tookie was responsible for any kids NOT choosing a life of crime, just as it's impossible to tell whether the death penalty does deter anybody from committing a crime, as crime rates always seem to be escalating.
 
 
unheimlich manoeuvre
20:26 / 13.12.05
as crime rates always seem to be escalating.

In the USA crime rates, apart from drug offences, are down yet the prison population is escalating.
Bureau of Justice Statistics
 
 
P. Horus Rhacoid
21:17 / 13.12.05
I feel this really ought to be an issue about US policy and the injustice system, not about one person, about whom we really know nothing.

Agreed, sort of. Except that if you're morally opposed to the death penalty then it's also worth arguing the individual case as well, because god dammit this is a case of the government killing somebody because, um, the government has decided that killing somebody is the worst crime possible. Wait, what? I agree that this should grow to encompass the death penalty as a whole but no fucking way does that mean abandon the specific case either.

None of us is qualified to judge whether he repented, whether his speaking out against gang violence went any way towards reparations, or anything.

Leaving aside the morality or lack thereof of executing somebody, I don't think it matters much if his repentence was genuine. He was sending out a strong anti-gang message (regardless of whether he himself believed it) and in one case at least (the Crips-Bloods peace treaty) appears to have demonstrably lowered the amount of gang violence, at least a little bit. Leaving him alive could very well have benefitted the world; killing him has accomplished nothing beyond keep Arnold in favor with his conservative base.

Just so we're clear: I'm certainly not trying to glorify Williams and I realize I sound callous with regards to those of the victims' families who got some closure from this. I've read the reports of what he did and they make me more fucking sick than this does. Equally I have never lost a family member in such a brutal fashion so I can't say for sure that, placed in the same situation, I wouldn't want the man to die; I like to think I wouldn't, though, and it's not going to stop me thinking it's wrong.

What we are qualified to comment on is whether the death penalty is morally acceptable or not. So can we (meaning mostly bloggers and the press) quit making it about why Williams should have or should not have been an exception to the policy of execution, and actually address whether there should be a policy of execution in the first place?

Do agree that more focus should have been placed on the larger issue but, again, not at the expense of this individual case because in my view every individual case is unjustiffied.

Of which, I'm not exactly in the "liberal orthodoxy." I think the prison system is foul enough that for myself I would persist in viewing death as a mercy, and I suspect this clouds my judgment. Worse, I suspect that the US prison system is going to get more and more Abu Ghraiblike, and I'm loath to end the death penalty for that reason. I'm sure this is very irrational.

I see where you're coming from here- I've actually thought about this quite a bit and frankly I wouldn't last five minutes in prison. That doesn't affect how I view the death penalty though- if death is a mercy compared to prison I sure as hell would want to make that decision for myself, not have it made for me.

In any case I hope this explodes into a debate about the larger issue. I'm not keeping my hopes up though.
 
 
P. Horus Rhacoid
21:18 / 13.12.05
By the way, id entity, please don't feel I'm singling your post out and raging about it. I'm having a lot of difficulty dealing with this (see here) and there's a lot of anger spilling into my posts at the moment, but it's about the specific issue not about what you wrote.
 
 
*
21:48 / 13.12.05
I think I'm pretty much in agreement with you entirely, Fun. Particularly that it's irrelevant whether he had a genuine repentance, which was very much my point. As such, I'm hardly likely to take offense at your very welcome post.

But what brought me back to the thread was the realization that I'm being an idiot. The death penalty is unfairly used against non-whites, always has been, and will be for the forseeable future unless it's stopped. And Mr Williams' execution is also important as a case in point. One of the Governator's stated reasons for not commuting the sentence was because Mr Williams' book was dedicated to scary Black Negro people, some of whom have done bad things to white people. I suppose, up until now, I've been able to comfortably ignore the racial aspects of this case. That doesn't reflect well on me. Being white, it's easy for me to not care very much about the death penalty, because it's less likely to be inflicted on me. It took Schwarznegger's comments to remind me of this, and now I'm getting outraged. Late, and stupid.

And you're absolutely right that if death is preferable to prison for some individuals, those individuals should be able to choose it, not have it thrust upon them. My feeling is that some people use a sort of "Culture of Life" mindset to argue against the death penalty, and that can lead to the choice to die being witheld from people, which I would also be against.
 
 
Ganesh
21:57 / 13.12.05
I think the prison system is foul enough that for myself I would persist in viewing death as a mercy, and I suspect this clouds my judgment. Worse, I suspect that the US prison system is going to get more and more Abu Ghraiblike, and I'm loath to end the death penalty for that reason. I'm sure this is very irrational.

It's not irrational so much as highly subjective. It's perfectly reasonably for you to follow that logic, but it's not necessarily generalisable to others in that situation (who might well choose prison, however hellish, over death). Another central argument against ending the death penalty, of course, involves the possibility of human error. Life prisoners can be pardoned, released and allowed the chance to redeem whatever's left of their lives; corpses cannot.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:01 / 13.12.05
Besides which, any prisoner has the option of choosing death at almost any time.
 
 
ibis the being
22:46 / 13.12.05
I agree with id entity's first post in this thread. IMO any discussion of whether or not Tookie was or was not rehabilitated is a red herring to throw everyone off the real issue of whether the death penalty should be part of the US justice system. I've heard the radio shows and read the articles about the children's books he wrote and blah blah blah... none of it matters - there should be no death penalty, period. Discussions about what a prisoner "deserves" or does not deserve in terms of punishment plays into this whole emotional need for vengeance and retribution that I can barely believe is a part of what should probably be the most unemotional and objective branch of government.
 
 
P. Horus Rhacoid
23:24 / 13.12.05
Ibis- to a certain extent I agree with you. However, the issue of whether the death penalty is justified is not going to come up on its own- the extreme ambiguity of whether or not Williams deserved a pardon within the system as it now exists (ie was he rehabilitated) is what should raise the further question of what, exactly is wrong with that system. And as I said earlier I don't think that's a reason to abandon the debate over whether he should be pardoned based on rehabilitation because in his situation that was the only basis on which a pardon might be granted. A debate about the merits of the death penalty would have done nothing to help Williams specifically- he would have been dead long before any conclusion was reached. I agree that the way the specific matter of rehab ("He writes children's books!" "But he dedicates his children's books to eeeeeevil people!") has been focused on has distracted from the larger issues but at the same time I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand. Hopefully people will look at the result (Williams executed under dodgy circumstances) and start to examine things and a debate about the death penalty itself will come about from that. Given the amount of bullshit Texas has gotten away with in recent years, though, I'm not keeping my hopes up.
 
 
*
23:33 / 13.12.05
Haus— don't prisons go to great lengths to keep people from committing suicide? I was pretty sure this was the case.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:08 / 14.12.05
I was being somewhat facetious, id - on the whole, suicide is profoundly embarrasing for prison governors, and as such they tend to try to avoid it. However, they have to be right every time, and a suicidal inmate only has to get it right once. Essentially, my point is that a personal preference for death over long-term incarceration is probably not a sound basis for legislation.

So, Williams has been executed, and it seems so far that protests have been essentially within the law, if at times a little rambunctious. Apart from Morpheus, I assume that we're all fairly relieved about this. However, possibly the nonsensicality of the Governor's reasons for refusing a pardon will actually billow the sails of the death penatly abolitionists. Based as it is on the need to express repentance for the crime for which one has been convicted, it would logically mean that a man would have to abandon claims of wrongful conviction - that is, if those claims are sincere, to lie about one's guilt and to make an insincere show of contrition - in order to secure release from the death penalty. That seems more of a problem than the specific circumstances surrounding Stanley Williams, who is in other ways a bit of a special case.
 
 
Axolotl
08:14 / 14.12.05
I believe the UK's parole system operates on the same basis - before you can be considered for parole you must admit your guilt (and presumably show contrition), which has lead to problems with victims of miscarriages of justice.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:42 / 14.12.05
Yes - if you maintain your innocence, you are more likely to be cleared on the grounds of wrongful imprisonment than if you admit your guilt, but will not receive parole or early release. If you continue to maintain that you did not do it, it becomes impossible to determine whether or not you are sufficiently aware of why you should not have done it and should not do it again, so the authorities have to assume that you are lying about your innocence (your guilt having been established beyond reasonable doubt) and unrepentant about your actions.
 
  

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