Tookie gonna fry?
Split Court Clears Way to Execute L.A. Gang Founder
Wed Feb 2, 2005 03:54 PM ET
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A divided U.S. appeals court declined on Wednesday to reconsider a death penalty verdict against the founder of a notorious street gang turned peace advocate, making possible his execution later this year after a quarter-century delay.
Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the black founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles, was convicted in the 1979 murders of a convenience store clerk in a $120 robbery and of a woman and her parents in a motel robbery in which he stole $50.
An all-white jury convicted him on four counts of first- degree murder and two counts of robbery in 1981 and imposed the death penalty.
Since then Williams has filed a long series of legal challenges as well as written a series of books urging youth not to get involved with gangs. The Cannes Film Festival last year screened a drama about his life starring Jamie Foxx.
On Wednesday, a majority of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to allow a 11-judge en banc group to reconsider an earlier ruling from a 9th Circuit three-judge panel. The decision produced a relatively rare dissent, with 10 judges in favor of rehearing the case en banc.
"In this a case, a prosecutor, publicly castigated by the Supreme Court of California for his pattern of racially motivated peremptory jury challenges, removed all blacks from Williams' jury," Judge Johnnie Rawlinson wrote in his dissent.
"In declining to take this case en banc, our court bestows an implicit imprimatur upon the trial court's denial of a constitutionally mandated jury selection process."
"The very legitimacy of our system of justice depends upon continued vigilance against such practices," wrote Rawlinson, who was joined in his dissent by nine other judges.
The court majority, whose numbers were not specified, did not provide any reasoning for their decision to decline to rehear the case, as is customary in such orders.
The 9th Circuit order means that Williams could be executed as early as this summer, said Dane Gillette, California's senior assistant attorney general who oversees death penalty cases. The last hurdle would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.
California executed its first prisoner in three years last month. Long legal reviews typically result in two-decade-long delays before executions take place at San Quentin prison north of San Francisco.
Williams has renounced his gang past, has appeared on national television programs, and has an Web site promoting his books. "I pray that one day my apology will be accepted," he writes on Tookie.com. "I vow to spend the rest of my life working toward solutions."
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Wed Feb 2, 2005 03:54 PM ET
By Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A divided U.S. appeals court declined on Wednesday to reconsider a death penalty verdict against the founder of a notorious street gang turned peace advocate, making possible his execution later this year after a quarter-century delay.
Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the black founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles, was convicted in the 1979 murders of a convenience store clerk in a $120 robbery and of a woman and her parents in a motel robbery in which he stole $50.
An all-white jury convicted him on four counts of first- degree murder and two counts of robbery in 1981 and imposed the death penalty.
Since then Williams has filed a long series of legal challenges as well as written a series of books urging youth not to get involved with gangs. The Cannes Film Festival last year screened a drama about his life starring Jamie Foxx.
On Wednesday, a majority of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to allow a 11-judge en banc group to reconsider an earlier ruling from a 9th Circuit three-judge panel. The decision produced a relatively rare dissent, with 10 judges in favor of rehearing the case en banc.
"In this a case, a prosecutor, publicly castigated by the Supreme Court of California for his pattern of racially motivated peremptory jury challenges, removed all blacks from Williams' jury," Judge Johnnie Rawlinson wrote in his dissent.
"In declining to take this case en banc, our court bestows an implicit imprimatur upon the trial court's denial of a constitutionally mandated jury selection process."
"The very legitimacy of our system of justice depends upon continued vigilance against such practices," wrote Rawlinson, who was joined in his dissent by nine other judges.
The court majority, whose numbers were not specified, did not provide any reasoning for their decision to decline to rehear the case, as is customary in such orders.
The 9th Circuit order means that Williams could be executed as early as this summer, said Dane Gillette, California's senior assistant attorney general who oversees death penalty cases. The last hurdle would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.
California executed its first prisoner in three years last month. Long legal reviews typically result in two-decade-long delays before executions take place at San Quentin prison north of San Francisco.
Williams has renounced his gang past, has appeared on national television programs, and has an Web site promoting his books. "I pray that one day my apology will be accepted," he writes on Tookie.com. "I vow to spend the rest of my life working toward solutions."
All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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