Cobb

You changed my mind on the issue of clemency. I read a fair amount, saw the Jamie Fox movie and believed he should be spared. Until I read your blog.

It surprises me because I oppose the death penalty - have for the last 20 years. Thought I should let you know how influential your voice was with one of your readers.

While I've had doubts about the death penalty, this case was one without any.

Now I just pray that LA doesn't go totally stupid on us tonight over this.

_If_ it's indeed acceptable for a society to put a killer to death, he is as good a candidate as any. Whether it's acceptable, as a general practice, isn't @ debate so, as things are now, yeah, I think the right decision was made. Children's books or otherwise.

Parts of LA will go stupid after midnight...and all will deny that they have done anything wrong. This is a story of decisions and consequences. A decision was made and the consequences are not being accepted.

Sleep well Tookie you are about to go before The Judge.

I'm against the death penalty, but if anyone is deserving, he seems to be. Even still, gloating about it is plain wrong.

As Tookie's story comes to a close, I wonder what you think about Cory Maye?

I tend to side with Maye. I'm curious about the appeals process.

I'm fairly curious, too.

It doesn't make sense to me that a person would knowingly shoot a police officer during a raid. You know he isn't alone. Whatever you have will be turned up anyway, plus you will be up for murder. The only scenario that fits is that he was awakened by the sounds of his home being broken into by some stranger and he took action to defend himself and his daughter.

Memphis isn't known for being devoid of racism. However, I don't think that situation is likely to happen here. A few years ago I was called for jury duty but never seated, and among other things they told us that Memphis police never conduct a raid based on a tip from an informant. They always send in undercover people on multiple occasions to buy drugs first. One reason is to have enough on the perpetrator to get a sentence worth the risk of doing that raid. Another is to avoid raiding the home of an innocent person: the wrong home, or the home of a person who ticked off that informant.

People are writing and e-mailing Gov. Barbour about Maye. However, he is occupied right now with a scandal involving his niece's company getting a lucrative contract for Katrina cleanup that was not put out for bid. (Thank you, Republican Gov. Barbour, for being one of the shining lights of my party.) So he may be too busy to trouble himself with the life of this one hapless person.

The only reason I've been against the death penalty in the past is because of the chance of a mistake being made. And that's not the case here. Williams is a sociopath who will not admit his guilt.

I found you through Juliette, and I have to say I've spent a couple of hours here reading. Fascinating.

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Finally its done.
But as I feared, the 'fans' of Tookie are already gearing up.
No doubt there will be local violence amid crys of foul over the death of thier hero.

Whatever your political position on this it does seem a bit in bad taste to celebrate and offer "a hearty HA" over a man's death.
If we feel justice was done and the best decision made perhaps we can just pause to silently reflect on this and feel sorry it was necessary.

Silent pauses are for people with nothing to say. It gives the appearance of humility while concealing the true thoughts of the silent one. If it can be construed as prayer, than what business is it of ours? Anyway, my website was down for two hours yesterday. That was my pause.

So long as there are people who will make apologies for people who don't apologize themselves, silence is regression.

Laura(southernxyl): If someone breaks down your door in the middle of the night in an *unnannounced* raid, how do you know it was the police, and not criminals?

Two points: First, this Mental Crip has languished on Death Row for some 24 years now after the unfortunate misunderstanding that brought him before the Courts. Anything subsequent to his initial conviction, barring additional evidence of innocence, should be entirely immaterial to his penalty. He should have been executed decades ago, and the fact that he wasn't serves as no excuse for cobbling together excuses for non-condemnation now.

Second, regarding the Death Penalty in principle-- there is a very old, very consistent standard of dealing with human death; the concept of a "deodand". Anything that compasses destruction of a sentient individual, a living soul, is to be disposed of. Animate or inanimate... the fieldworker who falls into a hay-baler deserves to have the instrument of his death destroyed. In this sense, a murderer is a deodand, one who must needs be "rendered unto God"... it is not fitting, nevermind just or safe, that one wilfully causing the death of a fellow human being, taking God's part into his own hands, should face mere jail-time. True justice demands he face his Maker
(however conceived), who will render a true verdict, and the sooner the better.

The idea that condemned murderers have some extraneous claim to vindication, if they succeed in delaying punishment indefinitely, not only does society injustice, but counts human life as nought. The Maye case, now pending, illustrates the pitfalls of our judicial enterprise; we remember the corrupt "child abuse" prosecutors in Massachusetts requesting "finality" to absolve themselves. Such instances are beside the point.
Saddam Hussein will perish in this wise, for crimes infinitely more numerous and depraved than any psychopathic Crips'-- but absent torturous means of execution (Calvin's "death by slow fire", i.e. roasting alive for up to an hour), death is death. A private criminal's trangressions are negligible compared to State-sponsored viciousness, for which the vast majority of El Supremos go unpunished. In a better world, this would not be so; meantime, if we cannot do justice on Kim Jong-il or Castro, let's at least remove whatever Crips we can from circulation. Render them to a higher power. I would not like to be a four-fold murderer facing that Divine decree.

Bravo John Blake.

I'm against the death penalty, but if anyone is deserving, he seems to be. Even still, gloating about it is plain wrong.

But easily understandable once you've had those Concerned & Compassionate (TM) Celebrity Activists & Blacktivists pull the Moral Superiority + Race card on you one time too many. As a Belmont Club commentary on the Australian riots put it "Once the idea of justice has been lost, all that remains is revenge."

One grievance culture lusting for payback only spawns another to oppose it -- lusting for payback against the first one.

If anyone gloats because of they don't like the opposition, they need to grow up, IMO.

Wrong is wrong.

Rick, you can't. Ted Bundy could have hollered "Police!" Jeffrey Dahmer could have. John Wayne Gacy could have. Given that police probably have to conduct raids to do their jobs (I'm guessing) I don't know what the solution is.

I just know that if I was on that jury, I would definitely have had reasonable doubt that he knew he was killing a police officer and not trying to defend himself and his family. Unless there's something they're not telling us.

And I'm curious as heck about that warrant, too. What evidence was presented to the judge that caused him to OK that midnight raid? I hope it was very, very substantial because in the USA we aren't supposed to have to fear that knock on the door.