Stanley 'Tookie' Williams

[KenWittlief]

Its more than that. Since he never admitted any of the violent acts he committed he was reformed on his own terms.

His actions are very much like the stages of grieving that people go through: denial, anger, bargaining...

He denied being a murderer, he was angry when convicted and threatened the jury, and he bargained for his life with his kids books and phone-lectures

but he never made it to acceptance - he never accepted guilt for his actions, and never accepted the sentance that was imposed on him.

Imagine what it must have been like, to be a family member of one of his victims, and to hear his supporters say "the state has executed an innocent man"

what does that say about his victims? Where they not human? Was their life of no value, and therefore their death was not a crime?

The victims became non-people. Everything was all about tookie.

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Karthik

There's been some good discussion in this thread, it's refreshing. On the other hand, there have been some personal attacks in this thread. That's not cool. Let's try and keep things on track here, as opposed to singling people out and making sarcastic comments about them.

I agree with Karthik. There is some quality debate happening here, but I also see some personal attacks. I generally shy away from political discussions like this for that reason, but I do feel the need to add a few thoughts. I suppose it's more a blanket statement than anything else, but it's something to chew on.

In any given political discussion, there are an infinite number of opinions, and no completely right answers. The purpose of debate is to throw opinions out there for others to consider and critique, in the hopes of formulating a more informed opinion as facts and ideas are put together. It's one thing to hold a thought up and say "this is how I think things should be" and accept criticism with dignity and respect. It's another thing to hold a thought up and say "this is how things ought to be" and dismiss anyone offering criticism as wrong or an idiot. Bickering about fine points or who the burden of proof is on does nothing to further the discussion. If anything, furthering the discussion can sometimes mean knowing when to back down, without feeling the need to prove yourself right.

That said, I also have some opinions to offer, for whatever they're worth to the discussion. For a while, I was in favor of the death penalty in situations extreme enough to warrant ending someone's life. To an extent, I still am. The trouble is, and reading through this discussion has only given me more to think about, it's tough to determine when or if death is an appropriate punishment for any given situation. Certainly ending one person's life prematurely is reason enough for the friends and relatives of the victim of such a crime, but at the same time, what of the family and friends of the accused? Why should they be punished by losing a relation for the actions of that individual?

To address what others have said so far in relation to capitol punishment as a deterrent to murder- I'd ask you to define each type murder (short of the dictionary definition given above). Pre-meditative murder vs. spontaneous/emotional vs. killing in self defense vs. killing in defense of another vs. killing in a military environment. The movie Minority Report gave me a few thoughts that might apply here. In situations where a murder is planned and thought out, of course the killer has time to weigh the consequences of the action vs. the repercussions. In these situations the potential of the death penalty can help prevent further action from being taken. However, in spontaneous or emotional murder, say a husband coming home to his wife with another man, there is no planning involved. It happens there and then as a result of intense, uncontrollable emotions- without stopping to consider the consequences. Often, these cases are plead as temporary insanity. But the point remains, in that situation the threat of the death penalty never makes it into the killer's head because it happens so fast.

Without knowing all the details of Mr. Williams' case, I'll refrain from forming an opinion there. As far as the other political discussions go, I'll keep out of those as well, as they seem to be taking this thread off it's original topic.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

What's wrong with vengeance? Isn't the greatest form of retribution to have your own life taken for taking another's. Is it not the victim's family's right to closure?

Why demand retribution? One life has ended early, why should another? Violence breeds violence. Capital punishment is disproportinatly droped upon the undeserving poor. That is a whole other subject, but Gans has written well about it, and a good synopsis is here.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

I found a really great article on Wikipedia about capital punishment and have brought some new ideas for the death penalty:

• People who have committed the most heinous crimes (typically murder) have no right to life.
• The death penalty shows the greatest respect for the ordinary man's, and especially the victim's, inviolable value.

I don't understand how killing one person makes someone else worth more.

Wetzel

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

... In situations where a murder is planned and thought out, of course the killer has time to weigh the consequences of the action vs. the repercussions. In these situations the potential of the death penalty can help prevent further action from being taken. However, in spontaneous or emotional murder, say a husband coming home to his wife with another man, there is no planning involved. It happens there and then as a result of intense, uncontrollable emotions- without stopping to consider the consequences. Often, these cases are plead as temporary insanity. But the point remains, in that situation the threat of the death penalty never makes it into the killer's head because it happens so fast...

In most cases not involving a pre-meditated murder the death penalty would not be pursued anyway.

Originally Posted by Wetzel

...I don't understand how killing one person makes someone else worth more...

I don't see anything about increasing anyone's worth. I believe what Mike said was that the death penalty shows respect for the value of the victim's life.

[Tristan Lall]

Ken's got a good point about Williams; despite his conviction, he continually maintained his innocence. Maybe he really was innocent; more likely, he was not sufficiently rehabilitated to acknowledge his crimes and their effects. But that in itself shouldn't enter into the rationale for putting him to death, unless we're really talking about a 20 year sentence, followed by death, if he hasn't proven his innocence or rehabilitated himself.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

If the death penalty were abolished, a criminal would have little or no reason not to kill potential witnesses during the commission of a robbery (assuming that robbery would earn the criminal a life sentence or a very lengthy prison sentence).

One might argue that since they don't expect to be caught and sentenced to 20 years, they shouldn't particularly care what happens if they shoot the place up, too. (I'm oversimplifying, but I wonder how many violent criminals really consider all the possibilities, before going on a rampage.)

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

By waiving the threat of a death penalty, individuals can be encouraged to plead guilty, accomplices can be encouraged to testify against their co-conspirators, and criminals can be encouraged to lead investigators to the bodies of victims. The threat of the death penalty can be a powerful mechanism for greasing the wheels of justice.

There's probably been a Law and Order episode where an innocent person was set up for a crime, and was forced to plead to the charge, to avoid one of those "special circumstances" murder charges which require execution. In fact, it's not an impossible scenario to contemplate.

More broadly, it exemplifies the problems with plea bargaining in general. We've become so accustomed to it, that we don't question its efficacy, or even its morality. But consider Sweden, where they have a so-called absolute duty of prosecution (absolut åtalsplikt), wherein pleas bargains are not binding, and therefore, any information provided to the government may or may not be used as a mitigating factor in sentence. (Yes, this probably leads to many unsolved crimes, but other factors, like their differing standards of evidence and testimony must also be considered.) Can we say that it is ethical for our justice system to essentially offer people the opportunity to bring their penalty down from an (arguably) unreasonable one (which they were liable to face), to the (again, arguably) correct one, provided they supply the evidence that will inevitably convict them? I'd have to say that it's acting in bad faith to charge them with a greater offence, if the lesser offence is sufficient (as evidenced by the acceptance of the plea bargain)—something about the punishment fitting the crime.

And what of too much grease on the wheels? Our system allows someone to make false accusations in a plea-bargaining session, in order to secure more lenient sentence. There are cases where this has led to prosecution of innocent individuals, because someone decided to place their own well-being (namely, preferential sentencing) above the well-being of the one that they wrongfully accused.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

People who have committed the most heinous crimes (typically murder) have no right to life.

That's open to debate. After all, how do we define murder? Karen quoted a dictionary earlier; but in law, the definition is far less clear-cut. In American (and Commonwealth) law, all sorts of case law must be considered, in addition to constitutional and statutory requirements. Then, the judge's own bias will inevitably influence the interpretation. Ultimately, every case will use a slightly different "official" definition of murder. This makes it difficult (and probably, essentially impossible) to legislate that every murder should be punishable by death, even if that is the general belief that you might hold.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

The death penalty shows the greatest respect for the ordinary man's, and especially the victim's, inviolable value.

I'm not sure how the value of the ordinary man, or the victim, enters into the eventual fate of the criminal. Objectively, shouldn't they be separate issues? If we recognize the value of human life, a priori, do we still have to reaffirm it when someone is murdered?


Back to the diversion....

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

I do have a problem with this line...

I am vehemently opposed to seeking common ground with idiots. Their defintion of normal and acceptable behavior is far different from ours. The United State's idealog is that they want peace for not only of every United States citizen, but every citizen of Earth. That means we simply can't meet minds with terrorists or countries who routinely torture their citizens. For instance the president of Iran wishes for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth and thinks the Holocaust is a myth. How can you meet idealogs with people like this? The United States was formed with the pricipal idea that there should be a seperation of church and state. Terrorist countries see another country's religion as a pretense for war. We will never meet idealogically because we do not consider one's religion a reason for violence.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, is exactly what I'm talking about: an ideologue that refuses to discuss the reasoning behind these beliefs, and refuses to provide evidence to support his point. (In fairness, there's a very real possibility that the translation of "myth" would be more appropriately rendered as "legend" or "legendary"—meaning not that it was a falsehood, but that it had acquired mythical proportions. I don't speak Farsi, so I couldn't tell you what he really meant. His other statements on this issue certainly paint him as far from the mainstream on this issue.) It's people like him that will drag the process of reconcilliation on for decades—because until someone willing to listen and discuss their views is in power, progress will be suspended.

The principles that America stands for in theory, are not necessarily the same as those principles for which some Americans stand; I don't dispute the fact that America, in general, is a reasonably good place to be. But when the ideal of "equality for all", becomes, for all practical purposes, "equality for Americans (and who cares about the rest)", then, you've got less than your founders bargained for. The trouble is that many people believe the latter, explicitly or implicitly. It's an attitude like this, much more so than a hatred of freedom and the American way, that causes people worldwide to express their displeasure with America.

In fact, the mentality that all of America's founding principles are unimpeachably correct is also unhelpful. Unfortunately, it's just like the question of relative morality; when do you change an important principle? Upon which authority or evidence have you based this change? America has all sorts of constitutional principles that have been kept well past their shelf life. Look at the 2^nd amendment. It's a grammatical nightmare which fails to clearly distinguish or link its two clauses, and as a result, all sorts of idiocy has been perpetuated in its name. (Since it was ratified in 1791, the grammar is not surprising—but look at the trouble that would have been saved, if it had simply been written with two articles, rather than a sentence who's second portion does not necessarily follow logically from the first.)

[KenWittlief]

You cannot not plea bargain your charges down by simply pointing a finger at an innocent man. You would need to have possession of evidence, knowledge of evidence sufficient to convict the other person.

How can you plead guilty to a murder (for example) if you are innocent, and then tell the police where the body is?

Plea bargains are only accepted by the courts when the accused has access to real information and evidence, not just finger pointing.

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Grayswandir-75

If loseing lives is the major issue, why not push for global gun ban. It would stop all the killing. If you think it would be a probem to get other countries to listen to you, you form a trade embargo along with other aligned/UN countries against a select country(ies). A potential peacful solution to world politics.

edit: I missed when it switched away from being about Mr. Williams

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by Mike

When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

Good point, it's the same as drugs. Take cocaine, nowadays it is illeagal almost everywhere, but back when it was discovered it was a wonder pill. Cocaine was in almost everything (Coke actually had very little), and there weren't all these stories of people breaking into houses to get money to buy it, or innocents killed in drug wars. Cocaine labs didn't explode, or release dangerous chemicals. Even the Pope drank cocaine laced wine. Now it's illeagal and these things happen. If a drug/gun ban would work then it would be a excellent thing to enact, but this isn't and won't be the case

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

No amount of children's books or "don't join gangs" campaigning will bring back those 4 people's lives he took.

Neither will his death.

-Andy A.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

You cannot not plea bargain your charges down by simply pointing a finger at an innocent man. You would need to have possession of evidence, knowledge of evidence sufficient to convict the other person.

How can you plead guilty to a murder (for example) if you are innocent, and then tell the police where the body is?

Plea bargains are only accepted by the courts when the accused has access to real information and evidence, not just finger pointing.

I think that you're missing the point. I constructed two separate scenarios above (the first and third paragraphs following Mike's quotation); let me explain with a hypothetical example.

Referring firstly to a criminal pointing the finger at an innocent individual, imagine that a person, named Alpha, wants to murder someone, named Bravo, but would prefer neither to go to jail, nor be executed. Alpha decides that Charlie (whom Alpha knows) should take the fall. Alpha takes certain steps to ensure that Charlie has no alibi, plants certain circumstantial evidence implicating Charlie, then kills someone. In the ensuing chaos, Alpha is rounded up on suspicion of murder, but there isn't enough evidence available to charge him for it. Meanwhile, he is charged with something lesser (for which there is significant evidence), like possession of a concealed weapon. Alpha doesn't want to go to jail, so Alpha tells the police that he has knowledge of the murder, and wants to bargain down his weapons charge to probation. He claims Charlie talked to him about doing it, and the police round Charlie up, connect the planted evidence to Charlie, and off they go, to probably to court, maybe jail, and possibly execution.

Of course, there's a significant possibility that the police will figure out that there's treachery afoot, and go after Alpha for obstruction of justice, in addition to first-degree murder. But that's not the point. He still got an opportunity to bargain for his sentence by giving the prosecutors what they wanted. Charlie still runs a far greater risk of dying at the hand of the state than he otherwise would have; more so if the police are incompetent, or the jury is bloodthirsty.

In the second case, where one pleads to a lesser murder charge, to avoid the death penalty, imagine that Charlie is informed that there's a strong case against him, and that because Bravo was in fact a police officer, there's a "special circumstances" notation on his charge; the penalty, if convicted, is a mandatory death sentence. He can fight it, and hope that evidence implicating Alpha, and exonerating him comes to light, or, he can plead it down to a regular murder charge, with a sentence of imprisonment for life, with the possibility of parole in 20 years. Not a fun choice, but because Alpha was a meticulous criminal, Charlie is in an intolerable situation.

This situation reads like a Law and Order script, but you must grant that it is only improbable, not impossible. By no means did Alpha need to provide enough evidence to convict Charlie on his own; he only had to provide evidence leading to a trial. And never did I mention anyone finding a body based on the deposition of someone unrelated to a crime; that's just a red herring.

[MikeDubreuil]

There has been some good discussion on Tookie and why he did or did not deserve the death penalty.

Let's move this discussion to a new murderer, 18 year old David Ludwig. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Do you think if convicted should Mr. Ludwig receive the death penalty?

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

There has been some good discussion on Tookie and why he did or did not deserve the death penalty.

Let's move this discussion to a new murderer, 18 year old David Ludwig. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Do you think if convicted should Mr. Ludwig receive the death penalty?

I lied. Here's another opinion...

Second verse is the same as the first. No.

I'm not going to even both responding to Ken, Mike, or some of the other posts in this thread. It's not worth my time. Go Tristan, Beth, and Andy!

[Jack Jones]

I don’t agree that an execution won’t make the world a better place. There is a small percent of the population who are downright evil. From what I’ve heard about Tookie, if he was not evil, then few have ever been. He killed multiple times and then joked with his gangbangers about the way one of them gurgled as he drew his last breath. Good riddance to Tookie! My only regret is that he wasn’t done in 22 years ago. Better yet, in a perfect world, the All Mighty would have taken him just before he managed to do his first evil deed.

But the world isn’t perfect. Unfortunately, both karma and justice work after the fact, if at all, and if you believe there is either. On the one hand, I’d like to see all the incorrigible done away with before they get to the point of no return. On the other, and here is the rub, I can’t think of whom or what body should condemn them. History is packed with times when evil sat in judgment.

The crux of the matter is what should be done about evil. Let’s face it! We are stuck with it. Execution is evil. But it may be a necessary evil because we can’t have thugs going around shooting people just to watch them die. Abortion is evil. But it may be a necessary evil because we can’t have unwanted children living mistreated lives. Terrorism is evil. But some see it as freedom fighting. The war on terror is evil. But some see it as the only means for survival.

So, I have no problem with evil. It has existed since man changed the physical reality of natural selection to the metaphysical reality of selection by choice. Tookie chose to perpetrate an unnecessary evil. Society chose to carry out the necessary response.

[Madison]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

There has been some good discussion on Tookie and why he did or did not deserve the death penalty.

Let's move this discussion to a new murderer, 18 year old David Ludwig. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Do you think if convicted should Mr. Ludwig receive the death penalty?

I can probably make a list of all sorts of people with questionable moral fiber. After you've finished deciding from the comfort of your armchair whether this kid should live or die, let me know and we can start a full-fledged witchhunt!

I'll bring the stake if you bring the firewood.

(That is to say, it's probably mildly inappropriate to so casually discuss the future of complete strangers based on what you read on Wikipedia.)

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

After you've finished deciding from the comfort of your armchair whether this kid should live or die...

(That is to say, it's probably mildly inappropriate to so casually discuss the future of complete strangers based on what you read on Wikipedia.)

I have refrained from this thread solely based on the fact that I don't know enough about the person at hand to judge his life one way or another. Most of you don't either, and I wish you'd realize that and take it into consideration when you post.

Maddie did bring up something that I thought important for me to say, though. No living, breathing human being has the right to end the life of another living, breathing human being. You have no right to walk up to someone and shoot them. You have no right to walk up to someone and strangle them. You have no right to suffocate someone. Essentially, you have no right to kill another living, breathing human being in any way, shape, or form where you are directly responsible for their death. But apparently, if you are in a high enough position in American government, you can. A justice system of any kind automatically determines something as black and white, right or wrong.

So here's the next essay question I post to you kids:

Assuming that people are not inherently evil (since as far as I know, DNA researchers and scientists have not discovered an 'evil' gene), and since we have proven statistically that the death penalty has not worked as a threat to criminals and in some states the crime rate has gone up since the implementation of the penalty, what is the solution? If you were a governor, would you want millions of Americans protesting you, with the blood of convicted persons on your hands, or would it be for the best? Could you deal with their families and friends afterward?

And more importantly, since this is already the subject at hand... could you have given the order to kill Stanley Williams and live the rest of your life knowing you killed another human being? Answer honestly, carefully, justifiably, and <b>politely</b>.

(I'd answer myself, but I'd be afraid of swaying someone or sparking even more hateful and disgusting behavior as some of you have already displayed in this thread, apparently without remorse. Please remember that this is a public forum, that opinions are tolerated but attacks are not.)