Okay … I’m sure that most of you probably already know about the whole Tookie Williams story and the controversy surrounding his execution last night. I’m not going to discuss the details of the conviction here or the years of appeals or the last minute fight for a stay of execution. Those details can be readily found elsewhere. No, I’m here to talk in broader terms about the situation …
Tookie Williams was a thug … plain and simple. He was convicted of the murder of 4 people with overwhelming evidence and sentenced to death by a jury of his peers. This conviction was upheld by the courts through a full battery of appeals. Despite the claims at his execution that the state ‘executed an innocent man’ Tookie was far from innocent. He was the co-founder and leader of the Crips street gang in Los Angeles … he has never apologized or shown remorse for his acts … he has at least 10 accounts of extreme violence and threats to guards during his stay in prison.
‘But he wrote children's books and spoke out against gang violence.’ True … and I hope that it had a positive effect on some children in the society. But it doesn’t change the fact that he still praised militant black leaders, and it doesn’t change the fact that he was convicted of 4 counts of murder and sentenced to death.
The problem in this particular case is the timeframe. Tookie Williams was tried and convicted in 1981 … his execution took place in 2005 … 24 years later. The only time that someone should sit and rot in a prison for 24 years is if they have been sentenced to 24+ years in prison … not if they’ve been sentenced to death.
The appeals process … particularly in death penalty cases … needs to be short. Personally I say give them … I’ll be nice … 5 years (personally I feel it should be shorter … like a week but most people wouldn’t agree to that). If they can not come up with convincing evidence that they are innocent within 5 years then it’s time for them to get their ticket punched.
One of the problems of allowing them to ‘chill’ for 24 years is that people forget. It’s one thing to forget the passion of the moment and look at things from a more rational perspective … it’s something completely different to forget the evidence and the case as has largely happened with this particular case.
Of course you’ve got the fringe groups and the Euros that oppose the death penalty all together … but that’s not something I can agree with. I’m sorry, call me a barbarian, but I believe that the harsher penalties have greater effect on maintaining social order than the softer penalties.
It is the fear of punishment that prevents most people from doing things … be that punishment from a deity or punishment from government or other social structure. And face it … the ultimate punishment is death … no earthly force can do anything to you beyond that … now lets just move up the time frame to something a bit more reasonable.
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