Monday, December 12, 2005

Adios Tookie.

This just in... (I've always wanted to say that)

Arnold will not stay the execution of Tookie Williams.

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Stanley Tookie Williams, the former gang leader whose case stirred debate over capital punishment and the possibility of redemption on death row.

Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison after midnight for murdering four people in two 1979 holdups.

Hollywood stars and death penalty opponents mounted a campaign to save his life, making him one of the nation's biggest death-row cause celebres in decades. His supporters argued that the founder of the murderous Crips gang had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and children's books about the dangers of gangs.


Sorry Tookie, but there's no escaping your four murders (plus the robberies that led to the murders, his implication in several as yet unsolved murders, allegedly still participating in running the Crips from inside San Quentin, and refusing to cooperate and give up informaiton about current cases and suspects). But a couple kids books and Nobel Prize nominations should make up for that, right? Nope.

Arnold, you did the right, the just thing. I'm sure it was a tough decision.

UPDATE: Thought I'd link some of my previous thoughts on the Tookie execution here, here, here, and here are the most recent.

UPDATE 2: The Pajama squad is on it too. Protein Wisdom, breaking Tookie. IMAO too.

UPDATE 3: And if you're curious how long until the execution down to the second, Beautiful Atrocities has the Tookiemeter!