Execution of Stan Tookie Williams

[antioch]

He co-founded the Crips in the 70s, was convicted of murder in 1981, and has been on death row for 20 years. In that time, he's written many books urging youth against violence and been nominated for 5 nobel peace prizes. His potential execution has really touched me and spurred me to action against the death penalty. What do you all think about the case, the man, or the issues the whole thing has brought up?

[miles]

I don't think he should.  Then again, I am opposed to the death penalty in any case.  However, I don't know whether special treatment should be given to those who change their ways while on death row.  But again, no he shouldn't be executed; no one should.

[side_show]

I accidentally voted for 'yes,' when I really meant to vote for 'no' - who sucks? Me. I do.

I am opposed to the death penalty.

[V-Adore]

I voted "no," because I'm opposed to the death penalty in general.

I don't know how to feel about the issue of "do we consider clemency based on a death row inmate's actions in prison?" On one hand, if we assume that the criminals are actually guilty and that the crimes they have committed are so heinous that death is the only possible appropriate punishment, then no amount of good work is going to ameliorate that. On the other hand, it doesn't quite work with either of the alleged goals of the penal system: if the penal system is supposed to provide retribution to the victims and society, killing someone who has reformed doesn't strike me as particularly satisfying societal retribution, and if the penal system is supposed to provide opportunities for rehabilitation, than killing a reformed inmate seems counter to that goal. It's difficult to say.

I think this all highlights one of the major problems with capital punishment in this country: due to the number of appeals necesary to ensure that capital punishment is enacted fairly and only on the guilty, death row inmates stay in prison for years or decades and often have such opportunities to reform. It doesn't quite jibe with the alleged image of "swift retribution and deterrence" that's why we supposedly keep the death penalty around.

(Just to clarify: yes, the appeals system should be there. While I find state executions morally questionable in any case, state execution without the best possible safeguards against executing the innocent is reprehensible. I'm just saying that this necessary safeguarding takes away from a lot of the alleged deterrent/retribution effect of the death penalty and creates a lot of moral questions like this.)

[pmcd9]

I'm against the death penalty, but not "in general."  Innocents getting executed, guilty but rich going free, the judicial system is seriously fucked up.  On the other hand, someone that has murdered 5 people really needs to be put out of societys misery.

~Paul

[Asherdan]

My opinion in general: I'm down with the death penalty in iron clad cases. My little phrase for the requirements there goes "Any doubt, life without".

On the topic of dude being reformed: I haven't yet caught a statement from him along the lines of "I'm sorry I was a fucked up person and slaughtered those poor people." Maybe he ain't sorry, maybe he couldn't say it before now on advice from his legal folks. But the only thing he has to lose now is a life so maybe he should show some regret for his specific acts. May not help, but it'd be nice to know dude actually regained some humanity.

It's nice he's done all this shit with the children stories and interviews and all repudiating the gang life. But I tend to have a lot of cynicism regarding all that. Look at it this way: when you are finally processed and land in the House one of the first questions you gotta answer is what kind of Program you're going to get on. Your "Program" is what your going to do inside to keep yourself busy and do fast time and also look good to the parole board or appeal court. No one can know the motivations for dudes actions on the inside. From experience, I'm pretty damn cynical about it, though. What else was he going to do to keep from huffing gas?

I think it's pretty well established legally that Tookie is responsible for the ending of multiple lives. I also feel that's something irredeemable from. Dude can gasp.

ALSO: A short comment on rehabilitation*. I mentioned a "program" concept up above. From my experience most dudes in lock up seriously understand the concept of working the system. It's all about appearances and what it can get you. It's real common to see dudes doing the church activities or 12 step thing or GED prep or whatever just to get it on their jacket (file). Back in the 'block they're talking up how they're old lady is going to pick them up with a rig and a baggie and their gat and they're going to be flying large in no time again.

So given all that shit, you know where rehab comes from? Inside the person. And you can't see it or know that it's real. The way you find out who's rehabilitated is real fuckin' simple: they don't come back once they're out.

Quick Fact: only about 1/3 of California inmates get the fuck out and never come back. The other 2/3 hit that old revolving door.

I've got a theory about that based on observation: most inmates, whatever the circumstances that led to this condition, are completely amoral and self-centered thoroughly broken sub-humans. Which ties right in to working a program so you can maybe eye-ball the hot christian missionary volunteer's titties for an hour every week and get a good note in your jacket for your release hearing.

I don't think you can rehab someone up to humanity. The best you can do is get a duck that can quack the right things by rote.

What you can do is provides an institutional situation that allows those with an interest and desire in truly recovering their humanity to do so. Then let 'em out and see who comes back. Those are the ones you keep, I mean, since they like it so much and all.

*Please realize that I don't grant rehabilitation priviledges to those who kill, kidnap, rape and such.

So yeah, I'm the intentional 'yes' vote

[wombat]

I think there are surely people who deserve to die.  But I don't think there's anyone who I'd trust to decide who those people are.

[Doc]

I can see where Asherdan is coming from and harsher sentences for repeat offenders definitely makese sense but I'm just not down with taking away something we can't give back, what with humanity being innately flawed and all.
There again I'm in a country without the Death Penalty (in fact there was a big hoohaw lately because an Australian drug runner who got picked up in Singapore was hanged, it was actually cool to see how many people were against the death penalty over here but then of course the people who supported it had no reason to speak up so it's going to be a bit biased) so thats going to influence me.

I think the role of a prison system has to be reform even if, as Asherdan says, you can't force it to happen. If the prison system only exists for retribution or to contain the unwanted elements of our society then we may as well just execute or exile every criminal. We don't want people who steal or murder or such in our society but the fact that we have limited prison sentences acknowledges that people mess up and that people are capable of change.

[theinevitable]

hmm.

Yeah, not a big death penalty fan. As far as I'm concerned, only I have the moral authority to decide who lives and who dies.

What i mean is, I might personally kill someone. In self defense, or revenge, whatever. I am a human being. I have emotions, and these emotions are not logical. I'm not going to pretend that I'm some gandhi-like figure who never gets mad.
However, the government does not have these emotions. the government can't get mad and kill someone. so, why would we want it to be?

Edit: the roman empire did not have the death penalty for citizens. they considered it their purpose to protect citizens-- they would do horrible things to non-romans, but the worst they could do to citizens was banish them.

except for the catalinian conspiracy, where someone (cato maybe?) convinced the senate that it was a special case, and they executed a bunch of guys. to make an example.

[miles]

...in fact there was a big hoohaw lately because an Australian drug runner who got picked up in Singapore was hanged, it was actually cool to see how many people were against the death penalty over here but then of course the people who supported it had no reason to speak up so it's going to be a bit biased...

Speaking of...

I was following this a bit, and I was absolutely horrified.  I believe that federal law in the US allows for execution in certain drug cases (probably big drug lords and stuff), but it never happens.  Given that this guy did have a lot of heroin, he was still only a runner, and so young.

[Doc]

Yeah he was, there's been an odd amount of drug runner related sympathy in this country lately, the last one was a girl who got 20 years in indonesia because she got caught with a body board bag full of weed.

And while I disagree with the laws in Singapore I can understand their rationale for having them and based on that reasoning can understand why they were never ever in a million years going to make an exception in this case and let the dude serve a life sentence in an australian jail. I just don't have to like it.

Edit: Oh and as I understand it it he didn't really have 'a lot' of heroin, I think it was less than a kilogram though I can't find a news article on it right now. As I understand it in singapore if you've got enough to be consider a smuggler or a dealer or whatever you're dead and that's it, it's not that what he was doing was a particularly heinous example of drug smuggling it's that he was doing it at all (someone correct me if I've just caused a war here).

[miles]

He was convicted three years ago of carrying nearly 400g (14 ounces) of heroin at Singapore airport while travelling from Cambodia to Australia.

I read somewhere the street value was just under US $1,000,000.

[Turbo Ninja]

If Tookie was sentenced to die as punishment for what he did, he should die.  The punishment was levied as a consequence of something he already did, an unreversable crime.  

Clemency based on works achieved while in prison is a great idea and I'm all for convicts trying to change their ways/Make A Difference/etc. but if a Death Row inmate can seriously "work off" a death sentence, what's to say that we haven't already executed people who would have, eventually, done the same kinds of things Tookie did to get this consideration?

Therefore, we should keep all death row inmates alive indefinitely on the off-chance that they may one day redeem themselves through hard work and good deeds.

[AlohaDawg]

The 'nominated for a Nobel Prize' argument is spurious. Don't fall into that trap. ALMOST ANYONE can nominate ANYONE. It's like the Pulitzer Prize. And "Tookie" has zero chance of winning it.

Each year there are 100 to 250 nominees for each prize. Although anyone can be nominated, not everyone can nominate someone for a Nobel Prize. For example the website of the Nobel Foundation says that in the case of the peace prize the following people may nominate:

Members of national assemblies and governments of states
Members of international courts
University rectors
Professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology
Directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Board members of organisations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Former advisers appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute

The bolded is a rather large and heavily liberal group of individuals who have a tendency to politicize everything including, in this case, the Nobel Peace Prize.

I indicated support for his execution. He's a murderer who has never taken responsibility for or shown remorse for his actions, and his clemeny application contains what are probably intentional 'factual inaccuracies' such as "I was convicted by an all-white jury" (racially charged AND false).  If the people of California want to be rid of execution, have your lawmakers make it so. There is a process for this.

Asherdan speaks the truth. Society has, basically two methods of crime prevention from the standpoint of dealing with criminals who have been incarcerated: Rehabilitation or Deterrence. We don't demand restitution very often.

We have yet to find an Constitutionally appropriate method of highly effective rehabilitation. On the other hand, execution holds a small possibilty of deterrence for all but one criminal - for the executed, it's 100% but that 100% is also served by life imprisonment.

Repeat sex offenders, offenders against children, and people who kill with intention and malice should be executed because it's clear from experience that these are people who can't contribute to society more than they take away, and warehousing them doesn't hold value. I would give them one opportunity to commit suicide before executing them.

Life imprisonment is expensive. I think if we made prison difficult, uncomfortable and even painful you might see fewer people going there (or maybe fewer returning). I also think that more rich people need to serve meaningful hard time for white collar crimes.

[Bozack]

I think if we made prison difficult, uncomfortable and even painful you might see fewer people going there (or maybe fewer returning).

Prison is EXTREMELY painful, difficult and uncomfortable already. Maybe not for gang-lords, but that's just because they already have a hierarchy and support system set up outside of the prison, which follows them inside. This is why gangs flourish within prisons- it's a way to make sure YOU'RE not the bitch. I can't, of course, provide the actual studies (I'm funny that way!), but I seem to recall there being a study which showed that the number of gang members LEAVING prison was much, much higher than the number of gang members ENTERING prison. I would posit that making our prisons more difficult, uncomfortable or painful would be...well, first off, you'd have riots. Many, many riots. And then, eventually, the really bad fuckers would figure out ways to circumvent these new rules or regulations or spikes which randomly fly out of walls or whatever. Most likely, the way they would circumvent these new difficulties is by making life more difficult for the unaffilliated prisoner. Thus, it becomes even more important to join a prison gang as soon as possible.

And it starts all over again!