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 daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
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 Clemency for Crip Co-founder? 
#4962542 - 11/21/05 12:16 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Article
By Larry B. Stammer, Los Angeles Times | November 20, 2005
LOS ANGELES -- Day and night, a cadre of the condemned -- 3,500 men and 54 women -- await their fate on the death rows of US prisons.
But the life of a single convict scheduled to die by lethal injection at California's San Quentin prison on Dec. 13 -- Stanley ''Tookie" Williams -- has reignited a passionate debate among people of faith over accountability and punishment, forgiveness and redemption.
"There's a grass-roots buzz about it. There are a lot of people talking about it because of who he was here in Los Angeles," said Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer of Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, a large, predominantly black congregation.
Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist clerics and scholars said last week that the Williams case is fraught with ethical and moral implications.
How does a society weigh the lives of the four murder victims against the life of a convicted murderer who is genuinely reported to have reformed? How are accountability and forgiveness balanced? Even within religions, believers may disagree.
Williams, 51, cofounded the Crips, the lethal street gang. He was convicted of the brutal gun murders of four people in 1979, during two Los Angeles robberies.
But after nearly 25 years behind bars, Williams, for many people, has become an icon of redemption. He has written 10 children's books imploring youths to stay out of gangs. He has helped mediate gang treaties. His life has become the subject of a made-for-television movie, ''Redemption," starring actor Jamie Foxx. Williams professes his innocence.
The cover story in last week's Los Angeles Jewish Journal carried the headline, ''Should Tookie Die?" Across the state, placard-carrying demonstrators have implored Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency.
In this case, clemency would mean life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Challenging that stance, California law enforcement officials are calling on Schwarzenegger to allow the execution. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley decried Williams as a ''cold-blooded killer."
Proponents of the death penalty say that whatever Williams's efforts at amending his life, while laudable, cannot overcome the debt owed for taking lives.
''Principally, from a conservative biblical approach, if you shed man's blood, by man your blood should be shed," said Kevin Lewis, an assistant professor of theology and law at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University in LaMirada, Calif.
Lewis said that if the governor granted clemency, society, under the concept of retributive justice, would bear the consequences of the crime. He doesn't think it should be allowed in this case.
Lewis's views are at odds with the positions of many US religious leaders, including the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the heads of mainline Protestant churches, and a number of Jewish and Islamic scholars.
Last week, for example, US Catholic bishops strongly reaffirmed their church's opposition to the death penalty. ''It is time for our nation to abandon the illusion that we can protect life by taking life," the bishops said.
In weighing decisions of life and death, the notion of repentance figures prominently in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Repentance is more than saying ''sorry." It is radically turning from old and harmful ways.
That is a problem in Williams's case. Last week, Williams refused to apologize for murders, because, he continued to say, he did not commit them.
Beyond theology, there are streetwise reasons for allowing Williams to live, said Bishop Kenneth C. Ulmer, pastor of the Faithful Central Bible Church in Inglewood, Calif.
To gang members, Tookie Williams is a hero, Ulmer said. ''If he's going to be a hero, let him be a hero as one who turned himself around," Ulmer said.
If Williams is executed, Ulmer said, gang members would ask why they should change at all. ''Why turn? Maybe it's better for me to spend the rest of my life running than it is to stop, slow down, and turn around," Ulmer said.
Rapper Snoop Dogg, once a member of the Crips gang, called yesterday for authorities to spare Williams as hundreds gathered outside the prison to protest against his planned execution next month.
''Stanley 'Tookie' Williams is not a regular guy; he's an inspiration," he said. ''All I want to say to the governor is it's about keeping this man alive because his voice needs to be heard."
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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 Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: daimyo]
#4962544 - 11/21/05 12:17 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Should a murdering gang member be allowed to live because he may be an inspiration to more thugs?
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: daimyo]
#4962593 - 11/21/05 12:40 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Does violence solve violence???
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
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Depends on the situation.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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gregorio
Too Damn Old
Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 2,831
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Absolutely, many times it does solve it.
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962670 - 11/21/05 01:24 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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How???
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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gregorio
Too Damn Old
Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 2,831
Loc: Classified
Last seen: 5 years, 8 months
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Let's say your at the mall and some crazed lunatic pulls out a gun and starts shooting everybody in sight. Only another act of violence, a bullet in his head, is going to stop the massacre.
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962682 - 11/21/05 01:31 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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In that scenario it does stop the violence. But I stand by the statement that it doesn't solve the violence. Shooting him does not resolve the issue of why he was shooting in the first place. As does killing this man solve the reasons why young people join gangs and resort to violence as a means of getting by.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962684 - 11/21/05 01:32 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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That guy in Tacoma, WA surrendered to the SWAT team before they had to pop him though. Smart move. Link
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Nothing will solve violence.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
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Loc: The Ocean of Notions
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962694 - 11/21/05 01:35 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I admire the guys efforts I guess, but I dont know how much those books he writes do to keep kids out of gangs...
But shit, let him off...Its not like he'll be on the streets. He'll still be in prison for life...
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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway
If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: daimyo]
#4962699 - 11/21/05 01:38 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Depends on the type of violence your talking about. There is necessary violence which is for survival, i.e. nature. Killing to be able to eat, cutting down a tree for housing. All violence depending on how you look at it.
And there is unnecessary violence. Killing because someone stole from you, made you mad, wore the wrong colors in the wrong part of town.
No....violence in either form is an issue that is not going to be solved. But it is an issue that we can conciously choose not to participate in.
There is no need for that man to die. Killing him does nothing.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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To play the devils advocate for a sec.
Not killing him just means that tax payers get to foot the bill to feed and house him.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers
Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,286
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 4 years, 4 months
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No doubt. I'm sorry, if a man is a halfway decent person, even considering the horrible shit he did, I really dont mind paying some money every year to keep him alive. Should we execute everywhere who has life in prison, just 'cause we dont want to foot the bill? Pretty callous, to kill him so you dont have to pay for him.
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After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway
If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Also, the families of the victims lost out on that closure.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: daimyo]
#4962721 - 11/21/05 01:47 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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Your saying if he is not executed??
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Yeah, but its also pretty callous to kill 4 people too. It's pretty callous to rape a woman. And then get fed and housed at the expense of my pocket.
Im not changing my stance here, just playing the devils advocate.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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gregorio
Too Damn Old
Registered: 09/08/05
Posts: 2,831
Loc: Classified
Last seen: 5 years, 8 months
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Quote:
Madtowntripper said:
Pretty callous, to kill him so you dont have to pay for him.
Thats not it. People want to see him executed because he took the lives of four people.
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Quote:
Madtowntripper said:
Should we execute everywhere who has life in prison, just 'cause we dont want to foot the bill?
Yes. Well that, and to set an example.
Quote:
hawksapprentice said:
Your saying if he is not executed??
Yeah.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962761 - 11/21/05 01:59 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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No people want to see him executed because he was the head of the Crips. People murder people all the time and dont get the death penalty.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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I would not see any closure in that for me. Especially since the wounds are not new. If my sister were one of the dead i would still not support him being executed.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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lid
Insert TitleHere
Registered: 10/12/05
Posts: 563
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: gregorio]
#4962780 - 11/21/05 02:09 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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I dont like the idea of execution, but what are you supposed to do? How do you punish someone effectively when they have a life sentence without making people pay to take care of him and without killing him? I don't agree with violence, but at the same time I dont feel like I should have to pay to keep a person in prision until they die. Nobody uses their money to keep a roof over my head, or food on my plate. This a tough question indeed.
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molon labe.
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 11 years, 4 months
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: lid]
#4962796 - 11/21/05 02:14 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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If they let someone who founded one of the worst gangs in America and killed 4 people(who knows how many he really killed/what other things he did) live, then they are making a mockery of the death penalty. If this was a klansman there would be no argument.
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: daimyo]
#4962821 - 11/21/05 02:23 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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It would still be an arguement from my perspective. I dont like violence. I dont think that killing him will really do anything. Making an example of him serves no real purpose, it will do nothing. Klansman or no, I don't agree with the death penalty.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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 Prisoner#1
Even Dumber ThanAdvertized!
Registered: 01/22/03
Posts: 193,665
Loc: Pvt. Pubfag NutSuck
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Quote:
hawksapprentice said:
I dont like violence. I dont think that killing him will really do anything. Making an example of him serves no real purpose, it will do nothing. Klansman or no, I don't agree with the death penalty.
I wont play the devils advocate but I will say this, most violent criminals that
are incarcerated for long periods just become more violent, the prison system is
not about rehabilitation, it's about punishment and in prison you learn more
about how to commit these crimes as well as many others with less risk of apprehension
Lets take Williams for a moment, killed four people during a robbery, if he
recieves clememcy and isnt executed, what lesson do others learn that have
chose to follow in his foot steps, does writing a few kids books make him a
better person or is he still a murderer, what chance at life did he give his
victims, the man has alerady had 25 years more than they did, what of the
families of his victims, dad didnt come home to help little johnny with his
homework or practice batting for the little league game, he ensured that there
were far more than just 4 victims to these slayings, how will clememcy affect
those that have been victimized.
each year it costs almost half a million to house death row inmates, that
180million each year of our tax dollars for those 3600 inmates, why would
we want to support these people for 25 years or more, why wasnt he executed
long before now instead of costing us 12.5 million (think you'll make that in
your lifetime?)
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hawksapprentice
Yearns to Snowboard
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 3,195
Loc: Oregon
Last seen: 13 days, 16 hours
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Re: Clemency for Crip Co-founder? [Re: Prisoner#1]
#4963015 - 11/21/05 06:02 AM (17 years, 6 months ago) |
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But money really shouldn't be an issue here. I understand the reasons for his execution. Earlier in this thread I brought up the point of money to house this man. I see the point. But what if someone is on death row and they did not commit the crime, they were innocent.
In my opinion that one innocent death nulls any benefits from executing 10,000 guilty ones.
And innocent people have been on death row.
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"I celebrate the Earth, my home, my mother, my grave, and as long as men are Man they must, if they would preserve the integrated being, do the same---[and preserve]--this rank casual hungry smelly sweaty lusting transitory body, my oozy pulpy liquid-bag-swollen body, bones, blood, hair glands, my bejeweled sex; I love and celebrate it all. never to let men forget that they are animals as much as gods---that is one thing I shall say."
Edward Abbey
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HELLA_TIGHT
Madge the Smoking Vag
Registered: 08/19/03
Posts: 84,378
Loc: Afghanistan 
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There are bad people in this world, sometimes hugs and kisses won't fix everything.
He killed a family, put a bullet in his head.
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