Cobb

Firstly, I am not a fan of the death penalty for anyone. At the same time, I am ambivalent about Tookie's fate. He's done lots of bad but, apparently, has done lots of good as well.

I know nothing of the kind of environment he grew up in but heard him on Pacifica radio this morning and, according to him, he started the "gang" to protect their area from dangerous interlopers and ended up becoming just as bad. While I can condemn his criminal behavior, I cannot judge the validity of his alleged redemption.

I definitely will not join the crowd of those trying to save him, I also won't join the crowd of those continuing to condemn him for crimes that, at the very least, he will spend the rest of his life in prison for.

Many of those supporting him aren't those who glamorize thuggery and gangsta mentalities. There are many who honestly, and compassionately, believe that souls can be healed and people can and do turn their lives around.

11 30 05

Cobb: How harsh! Well in a way I agree with Qusan here. I am against executing him because the government having the ability to take life is giving it too much power. I say leave it to the families to resolve amongst themselves, but even that could lead to more murder in the Balkans of LA and elsewhere in CA. The only time I feel governmental complicity in killing is ever remotely justified is during wartime. YOu might say that Mr. Tookie caused urban warfare and you would be right. But my pro life and libertarian leanings cause me to question the death penalty as a means of doling out justice. And Cobb, I ain't a communazi and you know that:) And I have been victimized by two violent crimes; yet I often think that I would never want even my worst enemy to suffer as they have made me suffer. They must be punished, but I think death is too easy a punishment. Something else should be done, I just haven't figured it out yet.

I understand and respect your hesitation to deliver too much power into the hands of bureacracies. But this is where I would hope that blogs might make a difference. I've seen the man up close and personal, I've walked the streets of Crip neighborhoods. Remember the movie 'Training Day'? I'm right there. I've been at house parties where Crips show up and start doing a dance and say nobody else who's not a Crip can dance to that record. I know this stuff firsthand and secondhand. It's my town where I grew up. My brother's best friend Ernest was killed by a gangbanger. I know what the gang truce was like and I know what gang wars were like - I understand the impact of gang activity on life in South LA and on the culture of the city.

So what I'm saying is that people close to this stuff should have some privileged say in this matter, and I'm trying to make it as plain as possible that people who are trying to make a positive example out of Tookie have no idea what they are talking about. Crips (and Bloods) are killers, and he was the king of the Crips, not only outside but inside of jail.

Clemency is a huge mistake. The 'apparently a lot of good' is just PR hype.

11 30 05

Cobb: I do agree with you about the 'lot of good' tripe. YOu see my issue is a philosophical one. And I grew up in Oakland before moving to Modesto; I saw a dude get shot and killed in front of my house. I suppose we have all seen pain and suffering, but you have a very, very good grasp of the EVIL that is endemic in our neighborhoods. It would be nice if the neighborhood elders took care of him;) But that isn't realistic. I have a hard time believing in his rehabilitation and KNOW he is guilty of the crimes he was charged with. Like I said, I don't want the government taking lives; the slippery slopes are boundless. On the other hand, I am not so much opposed to grassroots justice...It would be nice if he worked in servitude to the families of his victims until the day he died. I believe that to be more justice than killing him; the families havta get something out of this imho. All these Leftist commies trying to convince us of the BIG LIE of his innocence can jump in a lake as far as I am concerned; they have no credibility and are KNOWN liars. I used to rock some Snoop Dogg songs that I heard on the radio, until the CD just about made me heave due to the pervasive vulgarity and disrepect ANd glorification of pimping. So I don't think he and his ilk are convincing anyone. Cobb, thx for engaging you do have a major point rooted in pragmatism. My issues are rooted in the philosphical. :)

I don't know. If they execute him, he will become a martyr and a bigger cult figure than he is already becoming. Tookie may have started the Crips but he didn't start gangs. I grew up in Chicago when the Diciples and the Blackstone Rangers were the kingpins (didn't live near/witness any action but they were notorius). Pardon my naivete but I really wish more energy would be put into efforts like Father Greg who started Homeboy Industries. He many not help everybody turn around but he does help some.
http://www.homeboy-industries.org/father_gregg.php

I just don't see where the death penalty will deter, teach a lesson (kids running around with guns taking bullets for fun aren't afraid of dying and don't expect really long lives), or do anything but perpetuate the same violence it is supposed to cure.

Tookie seems resigned to his fate - whatever it may be.

I think it is instructive to note the difference. As a Republican, I start with basic libertarian ideals and then consider a proper role for government in the context of nationalism. There are certain things that the government *must* do and there are interests beyond marketplace or religious forces that must be applied to discipline the government. I think it is impossible to sustain a libertarian society of more than 1 million people. I simply don't believe that Libertarianism scales. In fact, it might not scale up to a million, but I leave that exercise to a tangential discussion to be named later. So the fundamental question is, given a justice system which must be maintained by the government, are there cases in the course of human events which merit capital punishment? The answer is most certainly yes. But the reasonable qualification on the ethics of capital punishment, like everything else, is subject to matters of efficacy. (I can't think of a better all around term). Basically does capital punishment work? Is it properly applied, etc. Standard questions which must be monitored.

So again, as a defender of the Republic, there is no question in my mind that a justice system should have the capacity for capital punishment, and that certain individuals deserve it. But I am keeping in mind the scale of the society. If we were living on Libertarian Island, I would be a great deal more hesitant of killing an individual who may have reformed. Incrementally, the value of that individual is greater in a smaller society. The converse is true as well and I think it very relevant to this case. Individuals are capable of greater destruction in larger societies. Take Tookie and put him on an atoll in the Pacific, there's only so much havoc he can create. In Los Angeles County, with 17 million people, he can create a gang of 200 thugs (or 100 gangs which is closer to the truth), and become a menace to a much broader section of society. It matters that he is internationally famous. It matters that he was convicted of multiple homicides. All things considered I think he falls well inside the aegis of capital punishment, but furthermore he falls outside of the ability of a smaller society to contain and punish. The eye for an eye libertarian standard of justice would basically mean that the leaders of the Bloods should call a fatwa against him. It would probably be a very effective way of offing him - in fact it's been tried in prison. But to have that gang warfare in LA County is too costly to society.

Therefore it is best that Tookie be executed by the State of California.

Your trackbacks are still not working Bro. I posted on this post. Not sure where I stand on the issue. I tend to agree with Q on Tookie. Nevertheless it is a great piece of writing.

Well if Tookie becomes a martyr I'm going to have a hard time not spitting in the faces of people wearing his T-Shirt. As far as I'm concerned it's just like wearing KKK hoods.

I am really not concerned at all with the death penalty as a deterrent. I think it is a proper punishment. I'll give you a new reason to have a death penalty, which is basically the Jack Ruby defense.

If I were the cop who arrested Tookie and I knew him to be a killer, I would have less incentive to shoot him extra-legally if I knew he could be executed by the State.

14 days and counting.

Anybody who would make Tookie a martyr is nobody inportant.

"I’m going to get each and every one of you mother fuckers."

-Stanley "Tookie" Williams to the Jury after his verdict was announced.

I'm thinking those who would wear Tookie t-shirts might have a weapon or two so I'd be careful with the spit :-) I have a hard time believing that Ah-nold will commute his sentence so his day is drawing near. I only hope that this doesn't unleash some kind of gang warfare or riot. I hope law enforcement has their finger on the pulse of what might be brewing as far as retaliation.

Cobb, I agree that the death penalty is a proper punishment. As for all these people who argue that killing him will make him a martyr, even if that is true, it's not a reason not to kill him. I abhor the thought of Tookie in jail, living, breathing, reading, seeing his family, perhaps even having conjugal visits, becoming the darling of the media and liberals, while his victims are cold in the grave. The only reason this is exciting people is because Tookie is in the eyes of blacks and liberal whites, some kind of archetypal black man. A vicious criminal who kills people goes to jail and then tells people not to do what he did, which was not his fault anyway becaue it was the white man's fault and he just got "caught up" and he didn't really do anything wrong anyway. this is part of the reason for crime in our communities. We don't condemn it enough. We have mixed feelings about it, even when we ourselves are the victims.

But diminished you would be. You know it, and apparently you like it and are proud of it. Your standing to lecture anyone about anything is, to put it mildly, diminished.

I'm a blogger. Lecturing is what I do. You're a commenter, Making snarky remarks is what you do. Everybody's happy. What's standing got to do with it?

I'm a blogger. Lecturing is what I do. You're a commenter. Making snarky remarks is what you do. Everybody's happy. What's standing got to do with it?

I support the death penalty. If Tookie committed the murders (I haven't heard him claim he did not), then I believe it is only just that he be put to death. Period. And I believe a TRULY HONORABLE and CONTRITE person (male or female) who murders (by definition is not self-defense), should want to sacrifice his or her life in exchange for the life taken. For demographic purposes, I am a Black Catholic Middle-Aged Lesbian.

You do yourself far too much service, not to mention unearned praise, by describing this thin-witted rant as a 'lecture.' Posting it twice didn't help.

I think that if I visited someone's blog and thought it consisted of thin-witted rants, rather than to make a comment about that I would quit wasting my time there and move on to something more worthwhile. Methinks a nerve was struck.

I also think that if I were black I would be enraged by the fact that violent thugs' getting their comeuppance is thought to be racist. Because that equates black with violent thuggery and I would take it very, very personal.

A dead cop is a good cop.

Though I didn't deserve it, you coulda put it on my site. I do happen to be one of those people that wouldn't want the death penalty for someone that tortured my mother. Just don't think it's man's place to make such decisions, particularly through flawed institutional means. We agree on one thing--Tookie is not nearly the sympathetic figure folks are trying to make him out to be.

He does raise a question, though--is everyone beyond redemption? The death penalty is defended by the belief that someone sentenced to such a crime is beyond redemption, and Tookie does force us to question that notion. Or perhaps that only God can determine redeeming value.

Much the same way that God--should He or She exist--is the only person qualified to determine when it's someone's time to go.

God will do what God does whether or not humans do right. If you believe that God is in the justice business, then ultimately justice will be done. So I think if that's your position - that you believe that God is in the justice business, then you should leave worldly affairs to us worldly people and step off. Not you personally.

So far as I know, there is no legal definition of redemption and he wasn't sentenced to death with the possibility of redemption. So whether he was redeemed (in whoever's eyes) is irrelevant. This is a basic letter of the law question.