Execution Witness Area From Outside Entrance 
Execution Chamber - Lethal Injection Table From Chamber Door 
Anteroom of Execution Chamber 
Two Execution Holding Cells 
Posted on 12/12/2005 6:55:25 AM PST by doug from upland
Lethal journey draws to a close
By John Simerman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Stanley "Tookie" Williams will spend most of his remaining daytime hours with visitors inside a Plexiglas cubicle, wearing waist restraints and handcuffs and under constant watch.
About 6 p.m., a special security team will escort him from North Segregation, the original death row, to an annex building, and one of two "death watch cells" adjacent to the green execution chamber.
There, he can watch TV or listen to the radio, possibly tuning in as supporters gather for a mass vigil expected outside the prison's East Gate. The Crips gang co-founder, convicted of the robbery-murders of four people in 1979, faces lethal injection at 12:01 a.m., barring an 11th-hour reprieve.
"If he has requested a last meal, that's where he would have it," said Sgt. Eric Messick, a San Quentin spokesman. "He'll be there for the rest of the night."
Williams, whose tale of atonement and crusade for gang peace from death row has spawned a broad campaign to spare him, reportedly will make no such meal request.
San Quentin officials tightly control what happens in the days, minutes and moments before an execution, including a prisonwide lockdown today. The rules are spelled out in grim detail, in the innocuously titled "San Quentin Operational Procedure No. 770."
The plan, which has been refined over the course of 11 executions since 1992, covers all aspects of the execution process, from the inmate's access to checkers and chess and the availability of coffee, to the number and type of witnesses and the detailed procedure for administering a fatal overload of three drugs shortly after midnight.
Even before today, Williams' cell was cleared of most possessions, and he has been shackled and bolted to a chair during visits.
This afternoon, a member of the injection team will visit the pharmacy for the drugs that will kill Williams, place them in the "Lethal Injection Drug Box," then lock it.
Williams, 51, will strip for a body search before he is placed in mechanical restraints and taken in his underwear to the holding cell. There, he will be searched again and scanned with a metal detector before dressing in a new set of clothes and canvas slippers.
He will remain under constant observation by a three-member team "just to get a read on the man and see how he's doing," said Messick.
Williams can send out last letters and transfer any funds in his prison account to a beneficiary.
If he chooses, a spiritual adviser can visit, bringing a personal prayer book or Bible, a communion pyx, sacramental wafers or other approved religious items.
When Warden Steven Ornoski signals, Williams will walk on his own through the oval door of the execution chamber, where the state's first gas execution was carried out in 1938.
Barring a last-minute stay, Williams will be the 12th condemned inmate executed since California reinstated the death penalty in 1978. He also will have served more time on death row -- 24 years, seven months and 23 days -- than any of the previous inmates put to death.
Inside the octagonal vacuum chamber, Williams will be strapped onto a table and connected to a cardiac monitor. Anonymous members of an execution team will tap two of his veins for IVs. The second IV is a backup, in case of blockage or malfunction.
The team will leave the chamber, seal the door and turn on the exhaust fan. The three drugs are administered through an anteroom. That room also holds three telephones: one for the governor, one for the state Supreme Court and the Attorney General's Office, and one for the warden's office.
Williams can request Valium or a similar relaxant.
The lethal injection drugs are administered one by one, each of them in doses meant to be lethal.
The first injection is 5 grams of sodium pentathol, a common anesthetic. Delivered in a dosage about 50 times greater than during surgery, it is designed to knock the inmate unconscious.
The second, 50 cubic centimeters of pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the skeletal muscles. The third, 50 cubic centimeters of potassium chloride, halts the heart.
Legal challenges have claimed that malfunctions can cause tortuously painful death even as the inmate appears sedate. The challenges have keyed on pancuronium bromide, which could mask agony if the sodium pentathol fails to render the inmate unconscious.
Courts have denied such claims, including one filed by convicted murderer Kevin Cooper, whose execution last year was stayed for different reasons.
Asked if Williams may require more of the chemicals because of his muscular stature, Messick, the prison spokesman, said no.
"The potency of each of those chemicals is plenty enough for any sized person," he said.
A physician will then pronounce Williams dead and the witnesses will leave. The manual states that his body will then be removed from the table "with care and dignity" and placed in a body bag.
After he killed the Seven-Eleven clerk, he stood over the body eating a sandwich and laughed at the dying clerk's last choking breaths.
I can't remember, offhand, if he killed this guy before or after HE KILLED A WHOLE FAMILY IN THEIR STORE.
>>>"That's too bad, in a way. I'd say it would be more appropriate to substitute saline solution instead of the sodium penthol. Then Drano"<<<
I like the way you think. The only problem is that I wish we could have done this about 24 years ago.
TT
I read the reports on another thread. He killed an unarmed Stop and Go clerk at the store on his second night at his job for 100 dolars by shooting him twice at close range in the back while he lay on the floor. A couple of weeks later, he broke down a door of a family owned hotel, and killed the Chinese propieter, who was 77 years old, his wife and son, and stole about a hundred dollars there, too. In so doing, shot them at close range, shot one of them in the eye, put wadding and shotgun container in the body of one of them, referred to them later as Buddaheads. Planned to escape from prison and kill more people during the escape, laughed about the sounds the Shop and Go clerk made when dying, threatened the jury after conviction by mouthing "I'll get each and every on of you son of a beaches". Has never expressed remorse or apologized to any of the victim's families. 'Nuff said. The guy is a hard hardhearted, coldblooded killer who needs to fry so we don't have to worry about him killing anyone else or escaping.
Good things come to those who wait. Sometimes even justice!!!
We've got plenty more needles.
I don't know about the eating the sandwich part.
Even if the sodium pentathol fails there would be no pain, this is just another BS argument that the liberals have thought up to try to stop the death penalty. They could administer the Potassium immediately and there would still be no pain, his heart would simply stop beating and he would pass out and die. These people lie constantly and then wonder why no one(except celebrities) take them seriously!
Thanks for updates. I sure hold Arnold does not cave in to pressure. This guy has had plenty of time to appeal. The inocent he killed didn't have the choice. I saw the thread with the victims pictures. I am sure he's killed alot more than these people, but never got caught.
Execution Witness Area From Outside Entrance
Execution Chamber - Lethal Injection Table From Chamber Door
Anteroom of Execution Chamber
Two Execution Holding Cells
Lethal injections are a lot less painful than close-range shotgun blasts.
I'd bet they'd feel better if they were to just let him starve and dehydrate, because apparently that is painless. /sarc
Here is today's official discussion thread. He has the links that tell the whole story. Have fun listening online today to KFI broadcasting from just outside the prison gate.
ROFLMAO
OK, un-PC time. If Stanley Williams was white, would we even be discussing his execution? If he were a neo-nazi murderer who did all the same things as black Tookie would Jesse jackson be protesting? I think not. On another note, Nancy Grace on Headline News has a countdown timer for the execution of the screen. That is SICK. Lastly, we know more about Tookie, Piece of Scheiss< Williams than we need to. Does anyone know about his victims?
At first he said he didn't want one, but now I hear he's asking them to get some calamari and clam chowder from fisherman's wharf.....You know, probably the best argument, and I admit it's a weak one, against the offing is that 12:01 a.m.is way beyond his normal bedtime. What's up with that? Is the California Correctional Peace Officer's Union looking for some easy O.T. or what?
And why not make it midnight? Are they worried about getting into that whole 12 pm or 12 am (neither exist) debate? And finally, what do you want to bet some nurse gives him an alcohol swab before inserting the needles?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.