This whole "Save Tookie" campaign looks exactly like the campaign to save Tom Mooney in the early 1900s, a campaign largely orchestrated by the Communist Party. Since both the ACLU and the National Lawyer's Guild are both calling for Tookie's clemency, I would guess it is the same script they used way back when. They just had to dust off the old action plan for reenactment.
In 1918, Governor William Stephens commuted Mooney's sentence to life imprisonment in San Quentin, two weeks before Mooney was scheduled to hang. In November 1938, Governor Culbert Olson, soon after gaining power, ordered that Mooney be released from prison. The amount of propaganda and protests worldwide were amazing. I had the opportunity to view news articles from the time on the Mooney affair. This looks like the same thing.
(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.")