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Tookie asks for emergency stay
See BS News dot com ^ | 12-11-05

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


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: frytookie; justice; lethalinjection; murder; stanleywilliams; tookie; tookiemustdie
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To: Chena

Put the snipers on the roofs now. And alert the Korean community to be ready.


41 posted on 12/11/2005 12:44:23 PM PST by Enterprise (The modern Democrat Party - a toxic stew of mental illness, cultism, and organized crime.)
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To: BunnySlippers

Also, I doubt that "work" will have any influence on whether or not the Hollywood crowd and libs show up for a riot or not. ;)


42 posted on 12/11/2005 12:44:43 PM PST by Chena (I'm not young enough to know everything.)
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To: doug from upland

Hasta La Vista Baby!


43 posted on 12/11/2005 12:44:55 PM PST by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestu s globus, inflammare animos)
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To: robertpaulsen

This is great. Let's agree to stay his execution for the murder in question. We will put this execution off until after the hearing but go ahead on the other 3 executions now.


44 posted on 12/11/2005 12:44:57 PM PST by stocksthatgoup (Polls = Proof that when the MSM want your opinion it will give it to you.)
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To: mtbopfuyn
Clemency??? You've got to be kidding. I thought Arnold had more guts than that. Ok, so the taxpayers have been feeding and clothing him for a couple decades, 30 days isn't going to matter that much.

No.  False alarm.  Another Freeper and I both thought we heard Greg Jarrett say that the Gov gave him a pardon.

Still waiting for news.

45 posted on 12/11/2005 12:45:56 PM PST by SheLion (Trying to make a life in the BLUE state of Maine!)
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To: doug from upland
Here is how the curtains might go down on the Tookster.

The "clinician" will rub some alcohol on his right forearm to sterilize the area of the needle puncture (Hell, we don't wan't it to get infected, do we ?). A needle will go in and deliver 2 gm of Sodium Pentothal. This will knock out Tookie, and if he is lucky he won't be conscious to know what happens to him later. After a couple of minutes or so, PANCURONIUM Bromide will be administered to "relax" his muscles, basically to collapse his lungs. Well Tookie better hope that he is totally unconscious at this stage, you don't want to be awake and realize you cannot breathe. Finally the good doctor will inject massive amounts of potassium Cholride into his bloodstream that will interfere with the sodium/potassium ionic balance and stop his heart. If the Tookster is still awake, this is going to hurt like Hell.

Come on now Tookie, you knew this was going to happen when you killed those people 25 years ago, didn' you ?

46 posted on 12/11/2005 12:47:30 PM PST by HarmlessLovableFuzzball
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To: doug from upland
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.

Anyone know who it was that nominated him for the Nobel Prize?

47 posted on 12/11/2005 12:47:36 PM PST by TruthWillWin
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To: Mr Ramsbotham
I'm thinking that if he were going to grant clemency he would have announced it by now. I think he wants to wait until the end of the weekend to forestall any possible rioting.

Hmmmmm, interesting theory. I could be wrong, but I think that the folks who are against granting Tookie clemency are less likely to cause serious rioting, but would rather to voice their disapproval in a more mature fashion. It's the loony libs that are known for going crazy (literally) when they don't get their way.

48 posted on 12/11/2005 12:47:52 PM PST by Chena (I'm not young enough to know everything.)
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To: Enterprise
It would be cool if the warden were to announce that they had accidentally executed Tookie last night. That would certainly relieve the tension.

49 posted on 12/11/2005 12:47:56 PM PST by CAWats (And I will make no distinction between the terrorists and the democrats.)
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To: digger48

Bush has backtracked because someone screwed up and didn't check out Tookie's background. Kind of like Joe Wilson.


50 posted on 12/11/2005 12:50:07 PM PST by doug from upland (The troops will come home when the mission is complete)
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Comment #51 Removed by Moderator

To: doug from upland
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.

This is a virutal public announcement that the entire Nobel enterprize (in Peace and Literature) is seething with leftist politics, is nothing but a sham that is used to trick gullible news readers, reporters, and editors into promoting, and lending prestige, to radical politics (not that this is any surprise to anyone here).

I'd like to imagine that every single time any reference is made on broadcast media to a Nobel prize (Peace and Lit.) any conservatives present would immediately launch themselves into howls of ridicule saying such things as "Isn't that the outfit that wanted to give the multiple murderer who founded the Crips some big prize?"

52 posted on 12/11/2005 12:50:35 PM PST by LK44-40
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To: Jrabbit

I believe that award has been retracted. It is much like the Nobel nominations. Some politician trying to get Tookie clemency put him in for the community service award and some idiot who runs that office for the administration and didn't know who they were rewarding approved the award.


53 posted on 12/11/2005 12:50:39 PM PST by USNBandit (sarcasm engaged at all times)
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To: TruthWillWin

Probably his Mother.


54 posted on 12/11/2005 12:50:59 PM PST by F.J. Mitchell (Okay, bring our troops home. But don't feign surprise when the terrorists tag along.)
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To: doug from upland

If he is such a model of caution for kids re: gangs, why would he be making this appeal? Why not instead say, "Please stop these motions. I deserve my fate. Kids remember this. This could be you and this is terrifying and certainly not cool."


55 posted on 12/11/2005 12:52:10 PM PST by kcar (theUNsucks.com)
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To: Enterprise

LOL!


56 posted on 12/11/2005 12:52:48 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Chena

I know you are kidding.

But the last time they had a sensitive verdict to read, they announced it at a really odd time ... like early morning mid-week so as to discourage the Friday afternoon verdict and rioting all weekend.


57 posted on 12/11/2005 12:53:15 PM PST by BunnySlippers
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To: doug from upland
"You have reached the California Supreme Court. Due to the overwhelming backlog of requests for emergency stays no one can take your call right now. Please leave a message and your call will be returned within seven to ten days, or send a letter via certified mail. Please allow four to six weeks for responses to certified letters."
58 posted on 12/11/2005 12:53:25 PM PST by ElkGroveDan (California bashers will be called out)
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To: LK44-40

Then let's rename it. Now it's the NoBall prize.


59 posted on 12/11/2005 12:53:35 PM PST by TruthWillWin
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To: doug from upland

Tookie needs immediate death - but I bet he won't get it.

Does anybody remember the woman who was put to death while Bush was still governor of Texas? I believe she had been a prostitute who had killed a "client" or helped somebody else kill him - but she had become a Christian and had definitely turned her life around. She probably deserved a pardon, but politically, Bush couldn't do it.

Tookie doesn't deserve a pardon, but I bet politically, since Arnie is courting the left, it's going to be impossible for the Gov to deny him one.


60 posted on 12/11/2005 12:54:03 PM PST by livius
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