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Tuesday, 8 February 2005
Crips Founder- Four Murders in 1979 - Eligible to be Executed
Crip the Light Fantastic

The lawyers for Stanley "Tookie" Williams argued that the exclusion of black people from his jury was enough to get him a new jury but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to see it that way. His lawyers will appeal and so it continues. A murder over 25 years ago, a conviction over 25 years ago is still wasting resources and manpower. A life without possibility of parole would have accomplished the same exact thing - namely a life behind bars. What is interesting about this case, and it's typical in many ways, is that the convicted murderer is afforded a elevated status. Indeed, this man has been nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize and four times for the Nobel Prize in Literature (children books- extolling the nonviolent life) and is a cause celeb. Liberal folks just can't get enough of the idea of the transformed man, the noble savage that man is but who can be redeemed given enough love and understanding. Those folks will say indeed it is horrible that Tookie killed four people but he's an oppressed man in a white mans world and reacted to that oppression. And besides he has seen the errors of his ways and now knows that violence is not the way. Humm.

Personally I don't believe in the death penalty. But I don't believe that we should make icons of those who have committed murder or in this case murders. It should be about justice not celebrity.

Posted by gilbert davis at 11:40 PM EST
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