Posted on 11/11/2005 3:01:09 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stanley Tookie Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, is trying to head off a Dec. 13 execution by asking the California Supreme Court to reopen the case, his attorneys said Friday.
Among other things, Williams' representatives say forensic testing may have falsely sent him to death row.
Williams' lawyer wants California's justices to allow the reexamination of evidence that showed a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a motel robbery in 1979. They said conclusions that a shell casing found at the scene matched the shotgun were based on "junk science."
"The shotgun evidence isn't reliable," Pasadena attorney Verna Wefald said Friday. "There isn't any question about this."
They also want records about a witness who secured Williams's conviction of a fourth and final murder. That witness, now imprisoned in Canada for murder, testified that he and Williams robbed a convenience story and Williams killed the clerk, Albert Owens. Defense lawyers say his credibility is questionable.
Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said the government would oppose reopening the case. The justices on Thursday gave Lockyer's office until Nov. 18 to formally respond to the discovery motion.
"He has been rejected by every state and federal court that has heard Williams' prior appeals," Barankin said. "What they all determined was Williams was guilty."
Williams, 51, is in line to become one of three California condemned inmates to be executed within months.
He was condemned in 1981, but has maintained his innocence. He claims, among other things, fabricated testimony sent him to death row. He also says Los Angeles County prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors from his case.
The California Supreme Court, the federal trial and appellate courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court have already ruled against him.
Williams also is seeking clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for killing Owens, the 7-Eleven clerk; and Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang and Yu-Chin Yang Lin. Those three were gunned down two weeks after Owens when their motel was robbed.
While in San Quentin State Prison, Williams has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Prize for literature for his series of children's books and international peace efforts intended to curtail youth gang violence.
Williams and a high school friend, Raymond Washington, started the Crips street gang in Los Angeles in 1971.
The case is California v. Williams, S004365.
I would like to see him stay alive a while longer....twisting in the wind.
Anybody know the over/under on the Dec. 13 date and where I can get a bet down? This clown should take the nap.
I guess TOOKIE aint too hot on death when it is his own.
I don't think the odds are too good at this point for any stays, but this is California so who knows. He hasn't had much luck in the courts and appeal process so far tho.
He probably wasn't as strong as he looked, either;)
Bye bye Tookie. It's been fun.
Perhaps he could stay around and work to clean up the HUGE mess he has created. Thanks a bunch Tookie. Great life's work. You ought to be proud.
Too bad for him too that Arnold is so pissed off right now.
Crips founder nominated 5 times for a Nobel Peace Prize.
What does that say for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandella and Arafat both got one didnt they? They gave one to Jimmy Carter for peanut farming.
looks like that POS is afraid of going to HELL after all!!!
I'll be pleasantly shocked if he gets justice. It is California, not Texas, that we are talking about.
Tookie, extra crispy.
Williams and a high school friend, Raymond Washington, started the Crips street gang in Los Angeles in 1971.
This guy is the founder of the one of the two major west coast crime families, controlling thousands of drug dealers and other villains; still in existence today. The crips have murdered hundreds, if not thousands of people; in spite of this, the liberals have yet to meet a tyrant they couldn't love and adore.
Liberalism is a mental illness. This guy is a badder-arse than Scarface (real or movie versions).
Only good thing about this is that he's spent the last 20 years on prison being somebody's wife.
Not Tookie. This guy really is a modern day Scarface.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
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