Stanley Williams
The death penalty is always wrong.
It's barbaric, useless. It is a waste of time and money. It sends the wrong message. It is foul. That is true if the person sentenced to death has behaved well in prison or not. If they are guilty, or not. If they have attempted to redeem themselves, or not.
Today Gov. Schwarzenegger will decide whether a man should live or die. Think about that...what it says about our society....about where we are at in 2005.
And more than the life of Stanley Williams, the health and safety of many other people may hang in the balance. If there is rioting and unrest, if someone else loses their life from this event...will the interest of the common good have been served? Will the families of the victims have received justice? Of course not.
Stanley Williams maintains he is innocent. That may or may not be true. Regardless of that, he has spent his time in prison trying to teach a postive lesson to kids: don't get involved in gangs. Get an education, don't follow Stanley "Tookie" Williams path.
If we murder him, we will have sent a powerful message to those very same kids, that the State of California is more interested in killing Stanley Williams, with all the risks that entails, than the work Mr. Williams has done in jail.
That is some message.
It's barbaric, useless. It is a waste of time and money. It sends the wrong message. It is foul. That is true if the person sentenced to death has behaved well in prison or not. If they are guilty, or not. If they have attempted to redeem themselves, or not.
Today Gov. Schwarzenegger will decide whether a man should live or die. Think about that...what it says about our society....about where we are at in 2005.
And more than the life of Stanley Williams, the health and safety of many other people may hang in the balance. If there is rioting and unrest, if someone else loses their life from this event...will the interest of the common good have been served? Will the families of the victims have received justice? Of course not.
Stanley Williams maintains he is innocent. That may or may not be true. Regardless of that, he has spent his time in prison trying to teach a postive lesson to kids: don't get involved in gangs. Get an education, don't follow Stanley "Tookie" Williams path.
If we murder him, we will have sent a powerful message to those very same kids, that the State of California is more interested in killing Stanley Williams, with all the risks that entails, than the work Mr. Williams has done in jail.
That is some message.