I think Tookie should have an emergency stay in THIS!
Posted on 12/11/2005 12:26:59 PM PST by doug from upland
CBSNEWS.COM Los Angeles Dec. 11, 2005
(AP) A lawyer for convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams asked the state Supreme Court to stay his execution, saying the Crips gang co-founder should have been allowed to argue that someone else killed one of his four alleged victims.
Attorney Verna Wefald filed a petition Saturday challenging the validity of the four convictions and death sentences given in 1981 to Williams, who is scheduled to die Tuesday at San Quentin State Prison. She also filed an emergency request seeking a stay, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Williams' lawyers also have asked Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency, saying Williams has redeemed himself as shown by his books urging children not to join gangs. Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday the governor had not made a decision.
Williams was convicted of killing a man during a robbery in February 1979 and of murdering a couple and their daughter at a South Los Angeles motel in March 1979.
Williams denies committing the murders but has apologized for co-founding the Crips, the gang blamed for numerous murders in Los Angeles and beyond.
From behind bars, Williams has been nominated five times for a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to quell gang violence and four times for a Nobel Prize in literature.
In August, Williams received a President's Call to Service Award for his good deeds on death row, complete with a letter from President Bush praising him for demonstrating "the outstanding character of America."
The money from the sale of his books is used to support at-risk youth programs and to continue his appeals, his lawyers said.
Wefald's petition argues that prosecutors failed to disclose at trial that witness Alfred Coward was not a U.S. citizen and had a violent criminal history, depriving Williams of the opportunity to argue Coward was the killer in the February 1979 robbery.
Coward is now in prison in Canada for killing a man during a robbery.
"All of the witnesses who implicated Williams were criminals who were given significant incentives to testify against him and ongoing benefits for their testimony," Wefald wrote.
"This type of testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions in murder and capital cases in the United States," she wrote, citing a study from Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions.
Wefald declined to comment Saturday night.
The California Supreme Court, a federal court judge in Los Angeles, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court have all upheld Williams' convictions
Someone else killed one of the four?? Doesn't mean he did the other 3?? Guess only 75% isn't worth the death penalty..
I thought I just heard Fox say the guv granted him clemency.
Awk, Awk!
Eek, Eek!
Tookie, Tookie!
(fry him)
Poor Tookie. We should show him all the mercy he showed to the family he killed with a shotgun.
Tookie's been with us 25 years longer than he should have been -- it's time for him to go.
Hang 'em High ~ Bump!
So, he is a coward, isn't he?
I would have expected a "gangsta" to be a little bit more of a man about this whole thing. What a coward.
That's what "I" heard too!
I think Tookie should have an emergency stay in THIS!
Oh, well, in that case, killing just 3 people should only get him.... THE DEATH PENALTY.
The example of putting down a vicious, merciless murderer...Priceless.
Cowardly Tookie.
I've had Fox News on all morning and haven't heard them announce a decision yet. Maybe I missed it? I figure when they do announce the Governor's decision is will be a media frenzy and I haven't seen the frenzy yet. ;)
The money from the sale of his books is used to support at-risk youth programs and to continue his appeals, his lawyers said.
He hasn't made his decision yet, according to the report on Fox right now. Could come down any time, but hasn't yet.
Nope. False alarm. I did think Greg said he was given a pardon though. But no, the Gov hasn't said anything yet.
Listening to FOX right now. No decision yet.
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