Will Schwartenegger participate in a senseless murder?

[NNadir]

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A US judge signed a death warrant for a former street gangster and convicted killer who went on to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in tackling youth violence.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William Pounders set a December 13 date for the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, noting that his appeal against his death sentence had been rejected by the US Supreme Court on October 11.

"I am signing the warrant of execution," the judge said as several dozen opponents of the death penalty looked on in the crowded courtroom...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051025/wl_afp/usjusticeexecution

It seems to me that nothing can be gained by killing this man. The only thing it can do is to show the pointlessness of seeking redemption.

All capital punishment is wrong, but even among wrongs, this stands as one of the worst.

[Deep13]

1. This guy killed four people in the 1970s that we know about and ...

...founded the Crip street gang which grew to be an enormous criminal enterprise. We can disagree about the propriety of the death penalty, but this defendant is hardly the poster child for state oppression.

[monobrau]

2. As capital cases go

This is a pretty good one. Sparing this cold blooded killer and lifelong criminal would also show the pointlessness of of the justice system.
And redemption involves taking responsibility for your crimes, which he has not done. What he has done is orchestrate a charm campaign from death row in an attempt to escape accountability for his crimes.

[NNadir]

3. I think that the propensity of death sentances for poor people

shows the pointlessness of the justice system.

The Death Penalty is not distributed for justice; it is just yet another filter in our culture showing how the rich are protected and the poor are unprotected. I am unafraid to mouth the liberal truth that the outcome of Mr. William's life is probably connected with the fact that the city of Los Angeles provided much to prevent Mr. William's fall from infancy into a life of violence. It's not like the city of Los Angeles provided much to prevent Mr. William's fall from infancy into a life of violence.

For me the "point" of the justice system is NOT vengence. It is to provide for public safety. I am not arguing for him to become the head of Los Angeles Youth services, or even to be released. I am simply arguing that there is evidence for his humanity. I don't believe in killing human beings, not even Charles Manson, not even Charley Ng.

There are limits on the prestige of the Nobel Prize, and I note that the mass murderer Henry Kissinger wasn't just nominated for one, he won one. But still that this man has come so far that he could even be considered for such thing should be worth something. The man could have just rotted in prison up until execution, seething with violence and hatred, the path he lived right up until his arrest. Many death row inmates do just that, because it's all they've ever known. Still he chose another path. You may think it's just marketing. I don't agree. This man has done some real growing in 25 years. And even if we kill him for pure naked bloodlust, I'm not sure that the pointlessness will belong to him.

[Xithras]

4. Nope, sorry, disagree

he, Williams and two other men took 120 dollars from the store's cash register before Williams shot the young man execution-style and mocked the gurgling sounds the victim made as he lay dying. Williams was also found guilty of the shotgun murders of a family of three people in a Los Angeles motel.

When I was in elementary school, a bunch of Crips shot up a Norteno drug house a block away. Several of those bullets struck the school, and the fragments of one stuck a seven year old girl in the ankle. We have Mr. "Tookie" to thank for that.

I hate gangbangers with a vengeance. White black, brown, it doesn't matter to me...I think every damned one of them should be tossed in a deep pit and locked away forever. They're a socially destructive blight on society that needs to be eradicated. I'm happy that Mr. "Tookie" spent his time on death row penning childrens books, but quite frankly I don't really give a damn if they execute the guy. We can blame him for the four deaths he's been convicted of, but I can just as easily lay on him the THOUSANDS of deaths that have resulted from his gang legacy, and the grief of tens of thousands who have been injured or lost loved ones to Crip gang violence.

You hold this guy up as an example of someone who shouldn't be executed. I personally think that we execute far too many people in this country and that they should be reserved for especially heinous people. I hold Mr. "Tookie" up as an example of the kind of criminal that SHOULD be executed. This guy has done an incredible amount of damage in his lifetime, and he should be executed simply to show other gangbangers how society deals with those who would kill over a "color".

[NNadir]

5. So your theory is that after the execution, gang banging will stop?

Do you think I can check back with you in say January?

To my mind the whole deal is crip sense in itself: Killing makes your problems go away.

I am, for the record, pefectly willing to hold up anyone who is being executed as example of someone who should NOT be executed.

Execution is alwayswrong. It posits the same thing that almost murderers posit, that it possible to solve a problem through killing someone.

I note that I would NOT support the death penalty for the war criminal George W. Bush, even though he had directly and deliberately participated in the murder of tens of thousands of people in an act of extreme and unjustified organized violence, specifically the war in Iraq.

Even the weak reasons he gave for committing these tens of thousands of murder are untrue, and he has laughed repeatedly at his crimes, one time giggling while he looked under the table for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Killing this guy, Mr. Williams, will not SAVE one life. It may in fact, cost lives. I note that murder rates are much higher in states that execute than in states that do not execute. In fact I note that the South executed 80% of the prisoners in the United States, and had the highest murder rate.

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf