Requiem for Tookie

The final decision isn't in yet, but Governor Terminator is mulling over the arguments to decide whether four-time killer Stanley "Tookie" Williams should be given a lethal injection next Tuesday or "clemency," which means life imprisonment on the public's dole.

Life hasn't been easy for Arnold since his boorish special election was rejected by California voters, and he's apoparently taken a hard turn left (probably also owing to Maria's urging). He recently appalled local Republicans by hiring a Democratic consultant as a Chief of Staff, and now he has the opportunity to lift the hearts of the liberal Blue Staters here by showing his soft side. But it's not an easy decision.

Arnold did not inherit the California death sentence law and would probably live well without it (as of course would "Tookie.") That there has been such a clamor for mercy for this thug is actually fodder for the right wing, as it characterizes Williams' supporters as mushy liberal cranks. My own sympathies are also being tugged by this case. Yes, Williams does seem repentent. Yes, he has written children's books advising them not to get involved in crime (what a concept!) Yes, he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize (though I'm not sure in what category). Well, okay. But so was Hitler.

But there are a few severe problems with Tookie's resume. For one, he killed four people in cold blood. That's the same number that got Capote's protagonists hung in 1964. And Perry Smith was also a good writer. Secondly, Tookie was the founder of The Crips, the most violent and powerful turf gang ever. This is not as laudable as founding, say, the Peace Corps or Habitat for Humanity. It's hard to compute, but one could validly speculate that hundreds of people were murdered, some even innocent bystanders, thanks to Tookie's organizational efforts, even as he now disowns his Gang and the nasty things they do. And would the Bloods have emerged if it weren't for the Crips? Tookie is like the Godfather of Gang Warfare. Not a pretty moniker.

So his attitude has been rehabilitated in prison, under the threat of impending death. Boo-yah. Isn't incarceration supposed to reform one's criminal aptitude? I know that recividism is the usual result of long imprisonment, but sometimes a prisoner may accidentally soften up, looking for a new cause. A hyper A-personality like Williams did about all he could as a major criminal and, looking for new worlds to conquer, stumbled into pontification. Thanks, but I'm not very convinced.

My personal view on capital punishment is negative. I do not believe in state-sponsored killing, and am embarrassed that only our nation, among all western democracies, still condones it (though this is not a surprise given our Bush-led Dark Ages). I suppose there are some heinous people who certainly merit extinction, but I believe parole-less life sentences are adequate, even more appropriate punishment--and provide protection to the public. I don't think the death sentence is a deterrent, since murders rarely are pre-meditated and are acts of extreme uncontrolled emotion. And of course there is the issue of unfair racially-biased sentencing and the occasional innocent who gets shafted by an imperfect judicial system (which, purportedly, could possibly have been the case with the high-profile Williams and a gung-ho prosecutor back in 1979).

So for all these reasons I would not be scandalized if Tookie's sentence was commuted. But I don't buy any of the sympathies expressed toward this human being who has perpetrated so much harm to his species. Let him live and stew in the contemplation of the pain and misery he has caused.