The Conseqences of One's Actions

AP: Justices Refuse Clemency for Crips Founder---

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to halt the scheduled execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang founder who became an anti-gang activist while in prison and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a last-ditch legal move, defense attorneys petitioned the high court earlier this month, alleging shoddy forensic testing and other errors may have wrongly sent Williams to San Quentin State Prison, where he is scheduled die by injection Dec. 13.

The defense derided as "junk science" ballistics evidence showing that a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a 1979 motel robbery. The attorneys asked the court to allow re-examination of the evidence.

Prosecutors argued there was no good reason to reopen Williams' case. Allegations about the shotgun evidence were based not on fact but on "innuendo, supposition and the patent bias of his purported expert," prosecutors said.

The high court voted 4-2 without comment to deny the inmate's petition. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or a federal court could still intervene to spare the 51-year-old Williams.

Nathan Barankin, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, expressed satisfaction with Wednesday's ruling.

"The extraordinary relief Williams sought is reserved for those cases which have legal merit," he said.
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While in prison, Williams has campaigned for an end to youth gang violence and written a series of children's books. He has been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Prize for literature.

Williams and a high school friend started the Crips in Los Angeles in 1971 and it grew into one of the nation's most notorious street gangs.

Williams' actions have led to how many deaths? How many grieving families? How much destruction?

Becoming a "better" person later in life does not negate what one did when one was younger, especially when one's actions are still contributing to deaths and violence.

It isn't as though Williams and a small group robbed a few stores in a misspent youth and have since converted to righteousness. The Crips have hurt people for years and years and aren't going to be stopped just because Williams stopped.

Someone has to pay for the waves of evil and violence and death and heartbreak that resound because of the Crips. That person is Stanley Tookie Williams.

Hopefully, this will show impressionable young people that their actions now can have extremely severe and serious consequences later. Perhaps Williams deserved execution will save more lives.