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Monday, November 28, 2005
Should they let Tookie live? Current mood: confused Category: News and Politics
Lately I have been following the story of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. For those who don't know, here is the situation in a nutshell: Tookie is a known former gang leader who helped found the Crips street gang out in California sometime in the 70's. He was convicted in the deaths of four people (he still claims that he is innocent) and he has been sitting on death row since 1981. He is scheduled to die on December 13th (3 weeks). While he has been in prison, he has come out against the gang life, written a few children's books with anti-crime themes and has even been nominated for both a Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for literature. Many people such as Jesses Jackson, the NAACP, Snoop Dogg, and Jaime Foxx are trying to get California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant him clemency and change his sentence to life in prison.
Now, when it comes to all of this, I am really on the fence. Let's look at it like this: sure, while he has been in prsion he has done some good things, but does that mean he doesn't deserve to die for the crimes he committed? Has he really changed? Can anyone really change that much? I know that if it was one of my family members that he killed I would want to see him fry. I know that sounds harsh, but it's the truth. Should he really get to live just because he has done a few good deeds?
I know that a lot of people are trying to turn this into a race thing. Some are saying that if this was a white man, he would have been pardoned by now. Well, let me just say one thing about that. If this was a different situation and it was Scott Peterson who was doing the good deeds then how would we feel? Let's say Scott writes a few books about the horrors of violence against women and children and how it must end. Would we be comtemplating changing his sentence? I hope the hell not. I think no matter what you do, at the end of the day, you have to pay for your crimes. This man was sentenced to death. Why should anything he has done in prison change that? Wow, reading that back, it sounds really cold and I know that many people will disagree with me.
Look, all I know is I'm not God. I don't know how things work in the universe. I don't know the way God sees things. Maybe Tookie is on some great mission and putting him to death now would be robbing the world of a great person who might prevent some young kid from joining a gang and killing people. But then, the question must also be asked, "How many people have died or joined gangs because of his earlier influence?"
Leave me some opinions. I am interested in hearing what people think about this.
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My responses (yes, I wrote two of them) were as follows, with some sentences lifted from other sources, but the sentiment was entirely, 100% mine.
I'm against the death penalty period. If he turns out to be innocent (as has happened before; remmebr those 9 death row inamtes freed by Iowa college students?) he should be let go. If he did it, LWOP+R (life without parole, plus restititution, which already exists in the form of the Son of Sam Law).
As for the argument Jami made about tax dollars, I suggest she look up an NPR special called The Economics Of Execution. It actually costs taxpayers MORE per year to kill people on death row. Plus, a statisitc I read, I think it was from the Jusitce Department, but this was a few years ago, says that (an average of) 1 in every 12 death row inmates is either completely innocent (didn't do it at all) or "fatcually" innocent (not directly invovled, or too mentally ill to know the difference between right & wrong) of the crimes for which they were convicted. Also, a black man is twice as likely to receive a death sentence as a white man who commits an equivalent crime. Absolutely true.
With about 3400 on death row nationwide, and 999 people executed in the U.S. since the death penalty was reinstated, think about that previously mentioned number; 1 in 12. I suck at math, but I figure that, again on average, the U.S. has possibly sent 83 innocent people to their deaths, and all because we "value the sancticty of human life?" I have one word for that. Bullshit.
I say we junk capital punishment all together. There's no evidence that it works as a deterrent (a study done in Baltimore suggests that crime went UP when the death penalty was reinstated), it costs us a ton of money, divides people (I've lost friends because of this debate), and that's not even counting the racism inherit in the system, and frankly, just one innocent man executed on death row is too fucking many. And please, spare me the loaded hypotheticals about "would I support it for" Bin Laden or Hitler. Hitler killed himself, and Bin Laden is terminally ill anyway, so it's a dumb question and shame on anyone who asks it. Like the completely unfair death penalty question asked of Mike Dukakis in the 1998 Presidential debates.
In short, clemency for Tookie Williams, and Mumia Abu Jamal. I think they did it, and should spend the rest of their lives in their cells, but I'm against killing them. Period.
Posted by I'm Brian, the cat is Piper on Monday, November 28, 2005 at 3:07 PM
Let me add something else to my earlier comments, and I will try not to sound too harsh here, but this is a serious moral issue for me, like abortion is for Catholic voters. I have voted for pro-death penalty candidates before, but I've always done so with a sick feeling similar to the kind I get when I eat bad shrimp.
You said, I know that if it was one of my family members that he killed I would want to see him fry. And others have said, put yourself in the shoes of the victim's families. This is not an unfair point, but the thing that never gets said, put yourself in the shoes of the family of the accused. How do you think they feel, espeically those in Texas, who see and hear people jumping and down and cheering their son or daughter beigns trapped to a table and filled with posion until their heart stops. Or imagine you're a guy like Larry Griffin. A Missouri man, put to death by the state in 1995. The state used taxpayer dollars to execute Griffin for the death of a 19-year-old drug dealer. In his court case, the prosecution relied on the testimony of a career criminal. A police officer whose own testimony corroborated the informant's tale has recently stated the man was lying. Imagine being poor Larry. An inncoent man on death row. How would you feel, to see people like Bryan or jesus here on this Blog rather cavalierly writing off your death as some form of "justice," rather than what it really is; legalized revenge. And what is revenge really, but just one of many motives for murder? Let's take this to it's extreme. Could then the family of Tookie Williams take the life of the executioners? Could then the exceutioner's family kill Tookie's kin? And so on and so forth it goes, until Ghandi is proven right. An eye for an eye leaves the world blind. A dead man can't be brought back to life, we all know this. So how can any of us here, on this Blog, in this country, on this planet, support the death penalty, and be able to sleep at night?
I used to be a supporter of captial punishment. Then I turned 6. If a child whose day is occupied by hating his 1st grade teacher and deciding which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle he'd like to be for Halloween can figure out how ridiculous it is to "kill people who kill people to prove that killing people is wrong," to quote the old cliche, what is the adult supporter's excuse?
I'm glad that you are grown-up enough to admit that you are confused by this. That takes guts that people twice your age with three times your power don't have. But for me, it's simple. A system that allows for the execution of even one innocent person is a faulty system. We should put a halt to this system to prevent such "mistakes".
Posted by I'm Brian, the cat is Piper on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 at 12:58 AM
Now, spelling, grammar, and numerical errors aside (I left those intact for the sake of honesty), I think I made a convincing case against the death sentence. But I'd like to read what you have to say about it.
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