Gang founder put to death WILLIAMS' BID FOR REDEMPTION FAILS
By Howard Mintz Mercury News California early this morning executed Stanley Tookie Williams, whose quest for death row redemption was not enough to overcome his conviction for four 1979 murders and his role in forming one of the most violent street gangs in the United States. After a day of failed last-ditch appeals in the courts and pleas to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to intervene, Williams was administered a lethal dose of drugs and pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m. He was the 12th, and most celebrated, death row inmate executed in California since the state restored capital punishment in 1978. Despite a furious campaign for mercy, Schwarzenegger denied Williams' bid for clemency Monday, saying the evidence of his guilt was strong and the condemned killer ``should pay with his life.'' The U.S. Supreme Court also sealed Williams' fate Monday evening when the justices turned away his attempt to halt the execution. Williams, described by prison officials as cooperative and calm in his final day, did not order the traditional last meal but instead was offered prison fare of chili macaroni and green beans. In his last hours, the 51-year-old co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang changed his mind and allowed five friends and supporters to witness his execution, which ended his nearly 25-year stay on death row -- one of the longest stints in state history. Williams' case attracted international attention for its explosive mix of violence, race, death penalty politics and moral tension over whether a death row inmate can do enough good from a prison cell to deserve a reprieve. A convicted killer of four who spent the past dozen years campaigning against gang violence, Williams offered hope to death penalty opponents and inspired anger in those who wanted him dead. As Williams spent his final hours inside San Quentin's prison walls, meeting with supporters such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the debate continued to rage over what the epitaph to his story should be. Jackson and other civil rights leaders said Schwarzenegger ``missed a chance to choose life over death,'' accusing the governor of succumbing to law-and-order Republicans who might add to his political troubles. But the Los Angeles prosecutors who obtained Williams' death sentence lauded Schwarzenegger's decision to refuse clemency, which hasn't been given to a death row inmate in California since 1967. ``There's no lingering doubt in my mind that the evidence was rock-solid and the law is going to be observed,'' said Robert Martin, the retired prosecutor who tried Williams. ``He's probably changed, but he hasn't in the most important aspect. He wanted to go begging for mercy at the same time he was unwilling to take responsibility.'' The execution generated the largest protest outside San Quentin since 1992, when the state sent convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris to the gas chamber. Throughout the night, more than 2,000 demonstrators gathered in the chilly air at the gates of a prison that now houses nearly 650 death row inmates. There were clear signs of how much Williams' case had become a cause celebre, thrusting the death penalty debate back into the forefront in California. The dead-end street outside San Quentin was jammed Monday night with television trucks and police cars. One Los Angeles television station paid $1,000 to a local resident for the use of his driveway. Chanting protesters descended on the prison in such large numbers that police arrived in riot gear. In Los Angeles, where Williams formed the Crips in 1971 with a teenage friend, the reaction to his looming execution was muted in the communities where gang life rages. Williams, a muscle-bound gang leader who told the Mercury News several years ago that he was a ``megalomaniac'' when he roamed the streets, was sentenced to die in 1981 for murdering four people during two robberies. A jury convicted him of shooting to death Albert Owens, 26, a convenience store clerk, for little more than $100, and then boasting about it to friends and recounting the sounds his victim made as he died. The same jury convicted Williams of three additional murders during a robbery two weeks later, when he shot to death Yen-I Yang, 76, and Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, the owners of a Los Angeles motel, and their daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43. Williams' lawyers presented no evidence in the penalty phase of his trial, when the jury decided execution was the right punishment. Williams has always maintained his innocence, saying police framed him to put him behind bars for his role in establishing the Crips. Through an odyssey of appeals, his lawyers argued that his trial was tainted by lying informants and racial bias in the selection of the jury that heard his case. Along the way, Williams transformed his image from that of a violent street thug to a self-described man of redemption who campaigned against gangs. He read books voraciously in prison. His conduit to the outside world was Barbara Becnel, a Richmond woman and author who befriended him in the early 1990s while she researched a book on the history of the Crips. Williams renounced his gang past, wrote children's books against youth gangs and argued that executing him would extinguish one of the few voices that would be heard in the gang culture. His supporters nominated him numerous times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Last year, his story was turned into a cable television movie called ``Redemption'' starring actor Jamie Foxx, who visited Williams several times in recent weeks. Even a federal appeals court that rejected his legal arguments remarked three years ago that Williams might make a ``worthy candidate'' for clemency, an extraordinary statement in a judicial opinion. But the campaign to save Williams' life galled the families of his victims, Los Angeles prosecutors and supporters of the death penalty. Lora Owens, Albert Owens' stepmother, told the Mercury News last week that Williams' claims of redemption were ``manipulation,'' insisting that he could not be redeemed without admitting his crimes. Schwarzenegger agreed. ``Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption,'' the governor wrote in his five-page decision denying clemency. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in rejecting Williams' last round of appeals, also remarked that the inmate had not produced ``clear and convincing evidence'' of his innocence to justify reopening his case. Williams' final appeals sought to halt his execution based in part on the argument that three new witnesses might be able to cast doubt on his convictions. Williams' lawyers also made one final, unsuccessful plea to the governor. Schwarzenegger, who has rejected all three clemency requests he has considered from death row inmates, is likely to face the issue again in the coming months. California has two more executions scheduled: Clarence Ray Allen, convicted of orchestrating four Central Valley murders in 1980, is set to die in January, and Michael Morales, on death row for the 1983 murder of a Lodi girl, has a date in February. Allen, 75, filed a lawsuit last week to block his execution, arguing that prison officials are violating his rights by failing to provide adequate medical care for a number of serious conditions, including an ailing heart. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Give the gift of hope to an orphaned child this holiday season. 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