No Clemency

The Terminator lets the ruling stand: Stanley 'Tookie' Williams will be put to death tomorrow in the State of California.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang who awaited execution after midnight in a case that set off a debate over the possibility of redemption on death row.

Schwarzenegger was unswayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from more than 50,000 people who said that Williams had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and children's books about the dangers of gangs.

"After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency," Schwarzenegger said, less than 12 hours before the execution. "The facts do not justify overturning the jury's verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case."

Schwarzenegger could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.

It's certainly no secret that The AntiCentenarian is firmly anti-death penalty [a value we share with Bill O'Reilly, among others] for many reasons. In fact, the first post, ever, in the AntiC memoryhole lamented the fact that consistent human-rights abusing, rapidly industrializing nation China has led the world to record-breaking year in executions.

I closed that post with this thought:

But we thirst for this kind of justice, thinking that it is morally acceptable. Those people all want the death penalty, and many of their reasons are understandable. but are any of them JUSTIFIABLE?

Despite far-exceeding my monthly alotment of bound derivational adjectives, the question does seem to be one worth asking: is this justifiable?

It's a tough question.

Tookie William's case, however, cuts to the absolute core of the values exhibited through the Death Penalty. Gov. Swartzenegger has shown that this society's power figures believe acceptable use of the prison system is one of retribution over rehabilitation. Tookie William's case is interesting because of his personal, private choices, made after his internment, to move from his youthful choices of violence into a constructive, positive life. In a way, he's a testament to human choice- when given the opportunity to thrive in the world of hatred and violence, he chose instead a better path, where he tried to show children that they, too, had that ethical choice to make in their own lives; and that his consequences could be theirs if they chose violence and crime without thinking about it.

Williams should, of course, serve out his sentence. But the condemnation to death is undoubtedly a missed moral opportunity by America in its best form; and a moral outrage in its worst. Williams has not yet and will never be able to repay society for what the crimes he's been convicted of, but he also chose to redefine his life.

He made the right choice. It's a shame to squander that.