Anybody who disregards number five of my previous post will have my personal thanks.
thanks,
hh
I wonder where the people he slaughtered would be today, that is, if they were still alive.
I heard Tookie Williams on NPR a few days ago, and I have to say… listening to him talk was extremely annoying. He likes to sprinkle his conversation liberally with 50 cent words, some of which he uses incorrectly. It was grating as hell and made him sound insincere, like he was trying to sound like an educated person making an impassioned plea, when what I heard was a pretentious faker trying very hard to impress the white liberal media.
I have no idea if he actually committed the crimes of which he was convicted. Regardless, the Crips have most definitely causes hundreds of violent deaths, so it’s hard for me to classify him as an innocent. However, that’s not really the issue for me when the death penalty is on the table.
Bottom line, I am against the death penalty on principle, so I hope Williams isn’t executed. If his sentence is commuted, all the better in my opinion. I just wish that it wasn’t only African American celebrities who get the lenient side of the American criminal justice system, or the attention of the media. This reminds me of Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, another famous convict who I think was guilty but who rallied many famous people to his cause. It makes me very leery of the whole issue. Bottom line, there should be no state-supported death penalty, which obscures the issue of innocence or guilt in situations like this.
I agree that keeping Williams alive is doing more good than killing him would. His books and appearances have been more of a deterrent than killing him, whatever his motivations are. What good will execution bring? He’ll be dead. What he did was despicable, and he deserves to be punished for those crimes, and he is being punished. Taking his life will not bring back the four that were ended. But his were his work with young people to continue, at least he could make sure that fewer deaths would happen due to gang violence.
Ahnolt’s penchant for the melodramatic is seriously annoying.
I’m sure he’s enjoying the limelight this wild speculation is causing, but it’s also causing unrest in other prisons which have had to step up security because our governator is playing to the media.
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” -Samuel Johnson
Willimas has only perfromed a few token activies to “keep kids out of gangs”. His failure to confess and show repentance is much stronger evidence than writing a couple of kids books. Even if he isnsits he’s innocent of those 4 murders, he was the leader of a murderous gang of vilent thugs- even while in prison. There must be hundreds of felonies he could turn states evidence on, but so far, all we get is “whitie framed me” and a couple of kids books. :rolleyes:
Keeping him alive shows that if one games the systems strong enough- by writing a couple kids books, getting some rappers to support you, and having a couple anti-DP professors “nominate you for a Nobel Prize” (done soley to make Williams look better and the DP to look worse)- then you don’t need to show remorse, rat out your old gang-members or even quit the gang. :dubious: It isn’t detering kids from joining gangs- it’s telling them that “whitie” is out to get them, and that if you play the game loud enough, dudes will gather behind you to get you off. :dubious:
Don’t get me wrong- the DP has to go. But Tookie is a “poster boy” FOR the DP, not against it. Mr & Mrs Average American is apalled by his crimes and this won’t change their mind about the DP. The anti-DP dudes are backing exactly the wrong horse in this race- no one but the choir is being convinced.
What we need is someone who wasn’t a career violent criminal, and who shows remorse or good solid evidence he’s innocent. Mumia or Tookie are not those guys.
Tookie Williams SHOULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTED DECADES AGO.
Instead he has been allowed to languish in prison. Killing him now will accomplish absolutely nothing.
I have stated before that I’m against the death penalty. I’m not against it because I believe it’s wrong to put people to death. I’m against it because it does not deter murder. It does not deter murder because by the time someone is actually executed for murdering someone, everyone’s all but forgotten what he even did in the first place to get executed.
In Saudi Arabia, incidence of violent crime is extremely low, or so I have read. Why? Because in Saudi Arabia, “death penalty” means being dragged out into the public square and having your head chopped off in full view. Who in the hell would ever want to take the risk of murdering someone and getting caught after witnessing a display like that? Brutal, yes. Effective, YES.
In America, “death penalty” means sitting in prison for years, going through appeals proccesses and other legal horseshit, and being executed within the walls of a prison, well away from the public.
The American capital punishment system is worthless, worthless, worthless.
And yet, they do.
Saudi Arabia has the second highest execution rate in the world. Not only do murderers continue to murder, but other capital crimes continue apace:
Personally, I’d rather not emulate Saudi Arabia in this country.
He needs to be punished for the crimes he committed (not rewarded with clemency for any good he has done in the meantime.) He needs to remain in prison (without parole) for the rest of his life. He’s not Nelson Mandela!!
At least with his life without parole sentence, he could still continue to do good things from where he is, (just as he’s doing now.) And if people wish to treat him like a V.I.P. and a martyr they should be more than welcome to do so, as long as he remains in prison while people worship him from afar.
I’d be wary of making such a claim. You can find roughly comparable low crime rates in countries that have no death penalty. There are many possible confounding cultural factors.
- Tamerlane
He also could continue to do evil things from where he is (just as he’s doing now) such as organizing and ordering killings while still in prison.
Hmm, how many kids books do you have to write to equal organizing and ordering a murder? :dubious:
I grew up in Los Angeles. I was in a fairly nice area that was very middle class, somewhere between Brentwood and Watts. I went to a crappy High School that had plenty of gang members in it there were much, much worse ones but mine was bad enough that there were two private armed guards patrolling the place. I was terrified of gang members. Williams was partially responsible for that terror. The Crips and their immitators are responsible for untold terror, violence against innocents, drug addiction, theft, extortion and murder.
Fuck Tookie.
I’m going to take a stab here and say you’ve used the pronoun he with Williams, not Scwarzenegger as the antecedent.
I do have a question for you, though. How is our Governor “playing to the media?” Or would you rather have him shoot from the hip with a quick yes or no?
Your command of grammar, even in my fairly inebriated state (preview is my friend) , astounds me.
A common thread I’ve detected here is that even amongst those who oppose the DP on philosophical grounds, they still believe that Mr. Williams is a poster child for the DP.
Might I be (somewhat) safe in making the declaration that many (if not most) amongst us Straight Dopers have the luxury of living in safe communities which afford us a degree of separation betwixt the hard facts of the reality of “Tookie” Wiliiams’ pre-incarceration world (the “gangsta life”) and our reasonably safe, middle-class, “non-Gangsta” world?
That is to say, that “Tookie” Willims represent the schism between theory and reality?
FTR: I am for the DP philosophically, but believe that here in the U.S.A., there is a lot to be desired between philosphy and practical application.
I think Mr. Williams’ lawyer is a lying sack of crap. If he does, or has, in fact, asserted to the appeals court that the trail court’s jury was an “All-White” jury, then the lawyer should face prosecution for perpetrating a fraud on the court. If the law does not provide for such prosectuion, it should.
I think Mr. Williams was tried fairly and sentenced fairly. Mr. Williams’ supposed good deeds in prison are not enough to outweigh his bad deeds.
That being said, I am currently opposed to the death penalty, but certainly not out of any love for Mr. Williams or trust in him or his lawyer.
Well, perhaps my command of Grammar is okay, but the spelling’s just plain shot in my posting above.
Make that “trial court” as I’ve no idea what kind of court a trail court is.
And of course, you know this because he’s been formally charged and convicted of that as well, right?
When has Schwarzenegger not pandered to the media? This:
just screams drama. He could have easily said “I will make a decision and issue a statement Monday morning.” But no, that would be straightforward. Stay tuned, boys and girls, hang on the edge of your seat and await the governator’s decision! Could be tonight, could be Sunday morning! A man’s life *hangs in the balance!" :rolleyes:
I am not suggesting he make a snap decision. I’m suggesting he’s playing to the audience. That’s what he does, remember? He’s an actor. It absolutely boggles my mind that people forget thatand believe he’s at any time sincere.
It boggles my mind that you’ve decided that’s the only reason for that statement. Perhaps it’s another way of saying, “I’ll issue the statement as soon as I come to a decision, and I’ll come to that decision no later than Monday.”
What can I say? I’m cynical enough to believe that our governor is using this case to his own ends.
Bah. Using this case to further his own ends.
Typos, coding errors… obviously the coffee is not cutting it. :smack: