As I wrote a couple of days ago (and on other occasions as well), I oppose the death penalty except in the rare cases of political mass murderers like Saddam, Stalin, Zarqawi, etc. Those people have too many adherents eager to spring them to allow them to live. They could too easily resume their homicidal activities. I regard this (thankfully) small category as a practical “public safety” exception to my generalized opposition to the death penalty on what ultimately come down to personal moral grounds.
Even so, I find particularly repellent the cause celebre around sparing the life of Crips co-founder Tookie Williams. Why him? We are told after many years in jail, he has repented. But since he has never, to my knowledge, publicly acknowledged he actually murdered four people, how is this possible? What kind of repentance is that? But even if we accept this dubious pronouncement, making a “celebrity exception” on an issue of the magnitude of the death penalty strikes me as another example of narcissism run amuck in our culture. Tookie is “cool.” Hollywood stars like him. Therefore he should get off, while other faceless folks rot on death row before finally being shuffled off for lethal injection. Frankly, I have more sympathy for the faceless ones than I do for Tookie. But maybe that’s just me. In any case, adding glamour to the death penalty discussion is tasteless in the extreme and disrespectful beyond words to the families of the victims whose corpses lay face down on the floor of that convenience store, blown to Kingdom Come by Tookie’s sawed-off shotgun.
UPDATE: Newsweek has just published a “Web Exclusive” interview with Tookie conducted by Karen Breslau. Williams still maintains his innocence in the murders. This interchange (or non-interchange) is revealing regarding the repentance issue:
Newsweek: The prosecutors told the governor that your refusal to “debrief” or, as your supporter have said, “to become a snitch” about the Crips sends the wrong message to young people. Why don’t you tell them to cooperate with police? To tell them if they are witnesses to a crime? To help them solve crimes?
Williams: Let me say this to you and to the world. I have transformed my life. I am no longer a violent man. I will not, I will never do anything to cause harm to any human being on the face of this planet. If I feel that opening my mouth will harm another a human being, it does not matter who they are, what their color or creed is. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. That is something I have vowed to God. My vow to God is more important than what I say to any human being on the face of this earth.
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17 Comments
1. Kevin Peters:Roger:
The court, correctly, can only discuss the murders that they have evidence for against Tookie. But lets examine the probable deaths that Tookie was connected to. You remember the bloodbath of the Crips/Bloods feud. You don’t rise to the top of these organizations without commiting multiple murders personally. No murders, no cred, no boss. Then there are all the hits in prison that were ordered by his creation. Then there is the drug trade that the crips used to fund their actions that brought untold death and misery. I think someone could look at the history of the Crips and conservativly estimate that 300 to 600 murders were directly linked to the organization that he led and organized while he was in charge. He was the boss. if he didn’t pull the trigger himself he directed others to carry out his wishes.
Has he confessed to all the murders that he was connected to? In claiming that he did not commit the murders he was convicted for he has said something to the effect of “I won’t apologize for crimes I did not commit.’ Fine. Please list all the murders that you did perform or order while you were the number one Crip and lets see how many there were. Can anyone seriously say that there wasn’t , at a bare minimum, 100 to 300. Read the history of these two gangs and then try to say that I am exagerating the triple figure estimate. He was convicted of four murders. The truth has to be far more.
Dec 9, 2005 - 8:07 pm 2. Mike Lief:I’m a career prosecutor, and you’d be surprised by the number of ADAs who aren’t gung ho about the death penalty, myself included. That fact notwithstanding, I think there’s damn-near unanimity amongst my colleagues that Williams is a posterboy for the stone-cold killer in desperate need of an execution.
I posted a link on my page to the L.A. D.A.’s response to Williams’ plea for clemency; it makes for a chilling read. All discussions about whether the governor ought to grant his request should begin and end with this account of Williams’ crime.
Kevin makes good points, but you don’t really need to speculate about the other crimes Williams has gotten away with in order to come down in favor of his execution. These particular killings are so depraved, so senseless, that they more than justify the imposition of the ultimate penalty.
No one can read of Williams’ mocking imitations of his victims’ dying gasps, his reference to them as “Bhudda-heads,” his statement that he killed one victim because he was white and think that this killer deserves the kind of mercy he denied his victims.
The mantra of the Hollywood crowd that Williams is a changed man is belied by his continued refusal to admit he committed the murders. How exactly is it he’s changed?
Dec 9, 2005 - 10:56 pm 3. Mike Lief:Roger,
Let me also add a plea that everyone refrain from referring to him as “Tookie.”
Ever since the Nicole Simpson/Ron Goldman murders, I’ve always thought we do a disservice to the victims by referring to their killers by cute nicknames. I refused to call Simpson “O.J.,” and the use of “Tookie” turns my stomach.
I’ve seen hardcore death-penalty DAs refer to killers they’re prosecuting by first name, and the easy informality always brings me up short. What makes it even more odd is that those same prosecutors often refer to the victims by first name, too, creating an odd dynamic when discussing the case, wherein they talk about “Bill strangling Suzie after he raped her.” Talk about cognitive dissonance.
I think the use of first names and nicknames ought to be reserved for friends, family, victims, and those we respect or revere. Killers deserve nothing more than to be referred to as “Williams” or “murderer.”
Anything we can do to restore a sense of shame and shunning to society’s most base members would be to the good, don’t you think?
Dec 9, 2005 - 11:11 pm 4. mikem:“But since he has never, to my knowledge, publicly acknowledged he actually murdered four people, how is this possible? What kind of repentance is that?”
Exactly. He is not repentant in any sense that society usually demands. Fear not though, dear icon. The usual “civil rights” suspects in LA have already starting issuing threats (”warnings”) of violence if he is executed. It’s called Blackmail (pun included).
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/5503561/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news
(via Drudge)
Dec 10, 2005 - 1:40 am 5. Terrye:As we all know Hollywood is full of sluts.
Just look at some rich white guy like Clooney use the corporate entertainment industry to make movies about rich white corporate guys…the hypocricy is stunning.
And now it seems that if we have to chose between Saddam and a Repulican we go with Saddam.
And if we have to chose between four innocent people and the animal with a sawed off shot gun who blew them away and then laughed about it, we go with the animal..
Typical self obsessed morons.
Dec 10, 2005 - 3:32 am 6. DeliLama:The people arguing for clemency for Williams seem to have a profound misunderstanding about the nature of crime and unacceptable behavior. Even the most ghastly serial killers have a “good side”. They are human and if you look for something good in them, you’ll almost always find it. But the legal system isn’t about whether someone is good or bad, it’s about whether they are guilty of particular crimes and the nature of their behavior at that time.
Like others, I won’t even begin to entertain thoughts of clemency until Williams talks in great detail about what he has done and the terrible way he did it.
Dec 10, 2005 - 5:10 am 7. Joe Schmoe:I know we are only supposed to express sorrow for victims these days, but I generally do feel sorry for convicted murders.
A lot of their crimes are just so…senseless. My friend just handled the appeal of a convicted murderer. He and his friends shot a clerk when robbing a convenience store. Bob’s client wasn’t the trigger man, but he was in the store, so the under the felony murder rule he too was prosecuted for murder. He was all 19 years old and stoned out of his mind when the crime was committed. No prior arrests, no juvinile record. He got a 50 year sentence. No possibility of parole.
Incidentally, you want to know how much Bob got paid, as the kid’s court-appointed lawyer, to handle the appeal of his murder conviction? $500. That’s right, $500. Nothing more.
This kid was guitly, there was no question about it. He confessed, and the prosecution had a videotape from the surveilance camera.
The victim was utterly innocent. Just a hard-working guy standing at the cash register. The robbers just snuffed his life out in an instant. His friends and family will never see him again. They will have to live with the pain of his murder for the next 50 years or more.
But I still think that the sentence of 50 years is senseless, too. The kid did something wrong. He deserves to pay, and dearly, for his crime. He can never pay as much as the innocent victim, or his family, will have to.
But damnit, the kid threw his entire life away at 19 in the space of about five minutes. This is a tragedy, and it does make me feel sorry for him. I would like to see him get out of prison in less than 50 years. If he had been sentenced to death, I would want to see his sentence commuted to a prison term.
I feel this way about more than a few people with murder convictions.
But with Williams, I just don’t feel sorry enough. The man killed four people! And he is the leader of a major gang!
Let’s asusme for the sake of argument that he has changed in prison, and is indeed a reformed man.
At some point, there is nothing you can do to make things right any more. If your crimes are horrible enough, you’ve got to die. I mean, if Hitler had been captured, and while awaiting trial at Neuremberg had publicly — and sincerely — renounced anti-Semitism, urged people to love one another, and began writing chidren’s books, I don’t think too many would be clamoring for his life to be spared.
Williams did some really, really bad things. It is too late for him. And if we can’t execute the leader of the Crips to death, we might as well do away with the death penalty altogether. Anyone who is executed in the future for less will have received disperate treatment.
Dec 10, 2005 - 5:14 am 8. brian:joe, i know what you mean about the sympathy for even the most vile killers. a jury takes the death penalty very seriously and they do not vote on it in a frivolous manner. i have very little sympathy for the 19 year old that you have mentioned. the fact that he was stoned means little also. i ve taken all kinds of drugs and have never considered robbery or murder as a result. because i am an atheist, i think that life is is the only thing we have and someone who murders as a result of a crime must die. the nuance comes in on crimes of passion between say a husband and wife. in crime, sorry, no exceptions. that is part of the occupational hazards of a criminal career. i suspect that most first time criminals don’t murder or rob convenient stores. just like anything else, it starts with the small things, shoplifting, stealing a bike, etc.
also, the first time i actually thought of adolph hitler being human was finding out that his favorite song was “smoke gets in your eyes” the song later made famous by the platters. brian
Dec 10, 2005 - 6:32 am 9. Pierre Legrand:Sympathy for a murderer’s accomplice? Sorry but that is a slippery slope into the madness that threatens our society. Responsibility for ones actions is not just a standard for those of us able to remain coherent enough to take stock of our actions each moment of our life, but also for those who choose to become “stoned” out of their mind.
Over and over we hear nearly everyone in our corrupt society claiming that it wasn’t their fault. There were extenuating circumstances, the devil made me do it and so on.
The death penalty stops the possibility of a murderer or his accomplices getting out of prison. This happens far more often than the general public realizes.
I personally put a murderer away who had stabbed to death a mother of 5, 42 stab wounds…pleaded insanity, got it. Got out in 20 years. He walks among us. He threatened me from prison, I stay armed just in case. The criminal justice system made me a victim for helping. I resent it deeply. Screw criminals, they deserve no sympathy.
In regards to armed robbers, they are the most likely to repeat offend. Combine that with killing a person and everyone involved in those sorts of crimes needs to die.
Pierre
Dec 10, 2005 - 8:20 am 10. Jamie Irons:I appreciate the comments of the prosecutor above, and entirely concur.
Pierre too makes good points.
What are the chances we would be hearing at all about this monster if he were a white, upper middle class, Harvard-educated serial killer who had “repented” and written books for little kids attending private school, urging them not to embark on a life of white-collar crime when they grew up and held controlling interest in major corporations?
Zilch. Because such a person could never be seen as a “victim” of anything, except perhaps of too many advantages. (Sniff.)
A psychiatrist can usually smell a sociopath coming from several miles away.
This man is an unredeemed, miserable sociopath, and his much-ballyhooed “repentance” is a crock.
Jamie Irons
Dec 10, 2005 - 8:54 am 11. ShrinkWrapped:Jamie beat me to it; this man has all the trappings of a sociopath (aka Psychoapath, which overlaps with extreme narcissistic pathology). He has never repented his crimes; true repentence would have included horror at what he did to other, innocent human beings; he would beg for forgiveness from the families of his victims and understand if they couldn’t give it to him. It would include a vow to do everything in his power to never allow such evil to flourish. He would have to debrief the police and help them in every way possible to stop his former friends from hurting more poeple. There is no evidence any of these things have happened. Instead, his concern begins and ends with himself. He wants to maintain his “street cred” which aids his celebrity, such as is it, so he won’t give up his fellow crips (with some lovely rationalization, sure to be bought by the idiots in the celebrity culture, tools) that by talking to the police he would be harming people; in a word, Bullsh*t!
Even though I am ambivalent about the death penalty, if anyone deserves it, this man does.
Dec 10, 2005 - 9:12 am 12. Kevin Peters:Roger;
Confession is a major part of redemption. Lets say he is innocent of the four murders that he has been convicted of. It is laughable to assume that he rose to the head of the Crips without commiting multiple murders. Has he confessed to every murder that he must have been involved in? When he has confessed to all his actions then the idea of redemption is possible. As far as I know he hasn’t. I don’t buy it.
Dec 10, 2005 - 9:42 am 13. Jamie Irons:What ShrinkWrapped says is entirely correct.
One further thought about the death penalty itself.
In my view, and I know this question is fraught with controversy, there is only one compelling moral argument against the death penalty, and that is that a conviction can be mistaken.
The only possible “mistake” in Tookie’s case is that the death penalty was not applied more swiftly.
Jamie Irons
Dec 10, 2005 - 10:10 am 14. Luther McLeod:I wish there were a way for Arnold to read a few of these posts, though I am sure he is receiving ample advice. It is the nature of that advice that concerns me. I may not be religious, but from personal experience I know that purely evil (realizing that sociopath is the more technically correct term) human beings exist in this world. I don’t think the quantity of their murders should exempt these people from justice. This man should pay for his crime. As Jamie states “…a conviction can be mistaken.” is the only thing that sways my thoughts concerning the death penalty. That does not seem to be a factor in this instance.
His supporters are nothing but pandering enablers looking for a bandwagon to further their credo of victimology and no individual is responsible for his/her actions. Can’t we all just get along my a**.
Dec 10, 2005 - 11:47 am 15. Patrick Tyson:It is laughable to assume that he rose to the head of the Crips without commiting multiple murders.
There is a lot I don’t know about the Crips as they existed when I lived in South Central, but by all accounts he was a founder and I do know that the name and the gangs who formed and/or affiliated around that name had the appearance of coming out of nowhere and nothing.
There is every likelihood that Williams and I crossed paths however briefly during a week in the summer of 1975 after a neighbor, a friend, a sometime protector and a Crip who lived directly across the street took a bullet in the head at the local swimming pool. Only two of the dozens and dozens of young men I didn’t already know who were on the block, at the memorial service and at graveside made an impression and he was neither.
I oppose the death penalty, but then I oppose a lot of things that are legal under the law—and vice-versa. It’s the Governor’s call. I won’t shed a tear or crack a smile (not that I did in 1975 either) either way.
Dec 10, 2005 - 12:38 pm 16. AndyRoark:The thing I have seen missing from the whole “Tookie” debate is the issue of the fallout from the gang he formed.
He is credited with the four people he directly shotgunned to death, but somehow the thousands of people who have died in relation to Crips violence over the last twenty five years are not, in any way, connected to his actions.
It seems to me that this would very cleary link him to Mr. Simon’s “public safety” clause.
Of course the only reason we are listening to any of this garbage is because Ray Charles played him in the movie version. And dosen’t everyone love Ray Char – uh, I mean Jamie Foxx?
Dec 11, 2005 - 7:03 am 17. beautifulatrocities:My vow to God is more important than what I say to any human being on the face of this earth
Let’s hope he has a conversation with God real soon, like, Tuesday
Dec 11, 2005 - 3:43 pm