Kevin attempts a triple-backflip fence sit! And he sticks it! The crowd goes nonplussed! The judges are giving him high marks, and the crowd are hating him. The liberal wingnutospwhere's leading milquetoast just can't please anybody!

My, Tom, you're feeling awfully full of yourself these days, aren't you?

I guess according to tbrosz there are only two positions one can have on the death penalty: I LOVE IT AND CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF SEEING PEOPLE FRY!!! -OR- IT IS THE MOST CRUEL,INHUMANE SOCIETAL ACT!!!. Anything more subtle or thoughtful is disregarded. BTW, tbrosz, I'm a vegetarian who supports hunting. Have fun trying to wrap your little brain around that.

From the link:

Maye's attorney tells me that after the trial, she spoke with two jurors by phone. She learned from them that the consensus among jurors was that Maye was convicted for two reasons. The first is that though they initially liked her, Maye's lawyer, the jury soured on her when, in her closing arguments, she intimated that if the jury showed no mercy for Maye, God might neglect to bestow mercy on them when they meet him in heaven. They said the second reason May was convicted was that the jury felt he'd been spoiled by his mother and grandmother, and wasn't very respectful of elders and authority figures. The facts of the case barely entered the picture. Gotta' love the South.

That's something else. That's the impression I got about juries from things I've read about trials, though- they just let things like that sway them. Perhaps it's difficult for a lot of people to take in everything they hear from both sides at a trial and examine it all in a critical and detached manner.

I'm not sure if I have mixed feelings about that or not.

I agree with the sentiment at Mark Klinman's
Eevery death diminishes me, in Tookie's case not so much.
The question, ultimetly, is whether the taking of a defensless life (human) is immoral?
Does it bring us closer or further from the jungle?

This paragraph from Balko's post is just too depressing for words:

Maye's attorney tells me that after the trial, she spoke with two jurors by phone. She learned from them that the consensus among jurors was that Maye was convicted for two reasons. The first is that though they initially liked her, Maye's lawyer, the jury soured on her when, in her closing arguments, she intimated that if the jury showed no mercy for Maye, God might neglect to bestow mercy on them when they meet him in heaven. They said the second reason May was convicted was that the jury felt he'd been spoiled by his mother and grandmother, and wasn't very respectful of elders and authority figures. The facts of the case barely entered the picture. Gotta' love the South.

One can only hope this somehow doesn't get things right, because if they do, man, I just don't fucking know.

Yet, in reality, how COULD the man have been convicted, if the account of the facts of the actual event is within miles of the truth?

Gotta' love the South.

from the post. b/c juries aren't biased anywhere else in the country. b/c jurors aren't swayed by emotions and fail to critically and dispassionately examine facts anywhere else in the country. nope only in the south are there any people unjustly imprisoned, or sentanced to death. and Illinois.

it was a good post, and a story worth telling. it would have been better without the regional stereotyping.

If it's wrong for the individual to kill, it is wrong for the state to kill. The Government should not be in the death business, and certainly not in my name.

I guess according to tbrosz there are only two positions one can have on the death penalty.

Conservatives don't do nuance, clearly.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll has a similiarly nuanced view (though in more general terms), which I recommend, at

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/12/DDGQIF5KV91.DTL&feed=rss.jcarroll

One thing about the case that's just absurd is the notion that, even though the police, just by pure mistake, entered this guy's home, he happened by accident to be a murdering sort of person, who all the evil motives and did all the necessary premeditation right there on the spot.

I mean, how is such a case not laughed out of court?

Oh yeah, black guy kills white guy in the South.

I read this blog often, but this is really very disturbing. When you discribe who Tookie _was_ in order to talk about our sympathy now, is tragic. It seems you believe that people are defined by the worst thing they have ever done. Which is a sad way to see the world, and perhaps oneself.

from MaxSpeak:Capital punishment should be shut down until a) the machinery can be refined so that mistakes are not made and penalties are apportioned fairly; and b) if the public still favors it. If it can't be refined, then it should be abolished.

i agree with this, except that i don't give a shit so much about b).

So, Kevin, you don't believe a person's redemption and rehabilitation is sufficient reason to grant clemency, period, or you don't believe Tookie's r&r is genuine?

Why would the death penalty be more just (or more harsh) than lifelong imprisonment? Knowing that you never will be able to walk again freely must be a horrible thought, worse than death in my opinion.

And even though the guy was a criminal and thug, his recent anti-gang actions have to be applauded. Why not further use this positive turn? What will be won when he's killed?

The death penalty is just about revenge. An eye for an eye.

"At the same time, if anyone does deserve the death penalty, Tookie Williams is surely it."

I think I liked it better when liberal Democrats had the moral courage to say that a society is judged on how it treats its most detested, in much the same way that I preferred it when conservative Republicans were skeptical of social engineering at home and abroad, and defended the interests of individual liberty - even for hated minorities in wartime.

What would Harry S Truman say about today's Democratic Party, which has largely descended into some combination of technocracy and opportunism, with a touch of demagogy for good measure. There is the New Republic cautioning congressional Democrats to stay the course in their support for the Iraq war, whatever their conscience tells them, and regardless of their abnegation of constitutionally perscribed responsibilities in the lead up to that war. There is Hillary Clinton out peddling legislation - to ban violent video game sales to minors, and "intimidating" flag burning - she knows to be unconstitutional. Here are Democrats arguing that the state should not murder because it is wrong but because they might simply murder the "wrong" man. Where are the armies of compassion? These people who will say and do almost anything to earn and maintain the loyalties of suburban independents.

What would Robert A Taft - who stood against the Klan at a time they were not unpopular in Ohio, and who stood for the civil liberties of Japanese-Americans at a time they were nips - say about today's Republican Party? There is the Weekly Standard urging Mr. Bush to attack the Democrats' patriotism to regain his stride. There is Mr. Bush himself calling for a constitutional amendment to permanently marginalize 5% of the population. These people have nothing to sell America but demagogy and plutocracy. They will say and do almost anything to hold their hard right base.

Good on ya, Blue Nomad.

I think the truest argument against the death penalty is that imposing it damages the society that employs it. It is really nothing more than the extension of the moral argument against torture, which has the same effect.

The point here is that it's a mistake to think only of what the perpetrator "deserves", based on his crime. Yes, in a very real sense, a murderer may well "deserve" to be put to death himself. But also in a very real sense someone who tortures and maims an innocent deserves to be so tortured and maimed himself. But we understand that to do so by our government would degrade our society.

Why do people blanch at the idea of execution by firing squad, or by evisceration, even in cases in which the murderer himself performed his murder in equally horrible ways? Because it degrades us. We would feel we have stooped to the level of the murderer.

THAT is the argument, precisely, against the death penalty itself.

You fell for the fake tbrosz, Kevin.

I thought I remember Kevin saying he opposed torture on moral grounds. I hope I'm mistaken in that recollection because this post doesn't seem to jibe with that.

Although Kevin comes off a bit Limbaugh like with this post, I don't think Blue Nomad is fair to pick points that he disagrees with from several different Dems to make the whole lot of them sound as though they are completely unprincipled. Some people actually believe certain things even if we don't agree with them.(Why is allowing parents the choice to limit what video games their children play so bad?)

I'm sure there are plenty of warts that Truman and Taft possessed. It's silly to praise only the good of past historic figures but dwell only on the negative of today's leaders. Hillary Clinton has spent most of her life advocating for children and women. She gets a lot of points in my book for that.

You shouldn't kill people.

fromEugene RobinsonRe Tookie Williams:"Of course, there are hundreds of other men on death row who repent of their crimes and would appreciate a little executive clemency, but they don't have movie stars pleading their cases. Oh, and also lacking a publicity machine are the four people Williams was convicted of killing.

"For me, this case just reinforces my belief that there is no way the death penalty can be fairly applied. Among the ranks of the condemned are few genuinely innocent men -- although one is too many. But death row is brimming with genuinely repentant men, not because some divine revelation has hit them but simply because they have grown older."

i just thought this was another interesting take. maybe redemption does come to most men. maybe that't the best case to be made for life without parole (as long as it truly means without parole in cases like this.) personally, i think that the death penalty is just to hapazardly applied to be a legitimate punishment, though i can empathize with the desire for revenge that some people have. i don't know what i would want as punishment if someone killed my family. i know that i have heard of (and met) people i sincerely hoped never, ever got out of jail again. course, none of their crimes were considered death penalty offenses.

check out my piece on the death penalty at:

http://voicesofreason.info

"I'm sure there are plenty of warts that Truman and Taft possessed."

When was the last time Hillary Clinton or any Democrat clocked more than 20,000 miles in a modest American car to investigate the dispensation of contracts in Iraq or the gulf states as Harry Truman did? When was the last time any Republican of note (in office) called for repealing the Patriot Act in full, as Robert A Taft defended wartime civil liberties?

See: you have me wrong. I didn't tell you what I thought of the war in Iraq, or any other issue, and to be sure I find the notion of life sentences in what is the most violent and inhumane prison system in the West more offensive than executions, but I do object to the notion that the state has the right to take any of its citizen's lives. War is another matter.

Today's Democrats really are the worst kind of craven. How to know it? In the case of Hillary Clinton, I would urge you to find the novelist Walter Kirn's great posts as guest blogger at Andrewsullivan.com. The reporters who have managed to get close to this woman almost universally come to the same conclusion, if not always in print than in private. She is a kind of characterological fiction, the creation of a small army of consultants and advisers. Like her husband before her, she has few principles, and fewer scruples. Nearly every public word is poll-tested, and suburb-approved. She is a monster.

As for the federal government doing the work of parents, we don't do that in America. You should know better.

For the record, I wasn't intending to pick on Kevin. He is one of the smartest, and most decent people in the blogosphere, and - you know - not the Democratic elites. If he decides to run for senate or president though things could change...

As for the federal government doing the work of parents, we don't do that in America. You should know better.

Why can't the federal government make it easier for parents to do their "work"? It's absurd to think that that is somehow incompatible with even a libertarian philosophy. I feel the same about gun control. I'm not opposed to people owning guns, but see no problem with making it more difficult to obtain a firearm.

I personally know a reporter who has interacted with Hillary Clinton. That person does not share the same sentiment that you claim all reporters have of her. Of course, we all know Sully is the paragon of unbiased information. I also know some Democratic officials personally. Perhaps you should meet a few. You probably wouldn't make such blatant generalizations. Of course that you can judge Hillary Clinton without having known her personally is very telling. That you didn't bother to address the issue I brought up previously is also telling.

One of the things that always bugs me about death penalty arguements, especially when they are centered around a 'case in point' such as tonight's, is the idea that Tookie Williams is a better candidate for receiving death because he has not admitted his crimes and "shown remorse".

Well, there's two possible reasons for him to not have admitted his crimes and shown remorse. One, he's as asshole who feels no remorse. Or two, he's not admitting the crimes because he's actually innocent!

I know next to nothing about Tookie Wilson, or the evidence against him. I am not arguing his guilt or innocence. I'm saying that the lack of a confession makes me very hesitant about a death sentence; knowing, really knowing, that the guy is guilty makes me more likely to go along with capital punishment in a given case (leaving aside the very large question of coerced confessions).

But the public as a whole seems to view it exactly opposite to me. The lack of a confession (and lack of certainty of guilt) is reason to withhold clemency and administer death, but confession and remorse (and their certainty of guilt) is mitigation, and increases one's chances for clemency.

Joseph Heller to the white curtesy phone. Paging Mr. Joseph Heller!

"Why can't the federal government make it easier for parents to do their "work"?"

Hillary Clinton knows full well that virtually all of these laws at the state level brought before our high courts have been struck down as unconstitutional. The legislation put forward by Clinton and Lieberman is along the same lines as laws already struck down - even more robust in certain respects - which is another way of saying it is a demagogic and craven stunt to win the hearts and minds of the suburbs.

When offered the opportunity to more than double the size of the United States, Thomas Jefferson knew how popular it would be, but deliberated on the decision carefully. He was concerned of its impact on the rights of states, and setting a precedent of exercising powers not spitulated in the constitution.

Our politics has degenerated so far from essential concerns about liberty, humanity, and constitutionality over the past generation that lawmakers today propose legislation they know to be contrary to basic American values, and the constitution itself simply to win over wavering centrists, or in the case of Republicans core conservative voters.

It is appalling, and deserves the strongest condemndation. There will be no rhetorical mercy on my part for this generation of elites; they are a disgrace, Republians and Democrats alike.

Mr. Drum however deserves much better. He is smarter and nicer than me.

While I was typing (and occasionally mis-typing) Mr. Williams was executed. I sure hope all the judges were right, and he really was guilty. Because if not, that's a mistake with no remedy.

Typical nonsense from Kevin and anyone who can't see through it is blind.

GHe's not against the death penalty, in a perfect world he'd be for it.

Of course, in THAT world he wouldn't need it.

Maybe we can have reporters for major papers and magazines decide who needs to fry, they, after all, represent the current state of human perfection.

Kevin? It can't be made "perfect". Therefore, you ought to be against it on its face.

Taking life is a sickness. Period.

Calton Bolick Conservatives don't do nuance, clearly.

There isn't a whole lot of nuance in "dead body"

A civilized country should not have the death penalty.

PS -- That was a really crappy Fake Tbrosz.

I have a slightly different take on this. I worked inner-city trauma during the height of the crack wars. Whether Mr. Williams killed those four people or not, he created an organization that killed and ruined the lives of literally thousands of people. Mothers whose children were gunned down senselessly 20 years ago are still grieving.

I'm as liberal as they come. I pine for that perfect world that would render the death penalty moot, but that ain't where we live.

And I have seen what they do to one another up close and personal, to the point of washing brain matter off my shoes after a trauma arrived in my ER.

Given the ripple effect of his actions, I dunno if there is enough redemption in the world to offset the choices Tookie made early in his life.

Look, Jon Carroll in the San Francisco Chronicle and Father Gerald D. Coleman in Catholic San Francisco both got it right, and said essentially the same thing (well, Carroll is not one to talk about all of us being images of God, but otherwise . . .) The repulsive thing about the anti-Tookie camp was the lust to kill. The repulsive thing about the pro-Tookie camp was the idea that he was somehow "redeemed" and important and articulate and useful and therefore better than, y'know, all those other murderers on Death Row. The next in line at San Quentin is not gonna see all those stars coming out in protest. Because you need star quality to attract stars, and most people on Death Row haven't got that.

Me, I oppose the death penalty because I don't think we're in a position where we need it to protect other people, and there's really no other reason for it. But the idea of escaping death because you manage to convince people you're better class than your average murderer (which is what Williams and his supporters were trying to do) is worse. Show me the same celebrities turning out to protest every execution and I will be impressed. As it is, they argued for clemency not because Williams was a human being, but because he was a special, valuable, useful human being. I do hope I'm not the only person here who finds that distinction loathsome.

I notice that a lot of people on this thread speak of economic or other practical reasons against the death penalty.

These are shallow arguments.

The true arguments for or against it should be based in the principles of morality and the laws of logic. I think a lot of the posters are against the death penalty on principle, but reduce themselves to economic arguments because they seem more persuasive. Perhaps they are . . . but a preference for persuasivity does not defeat the overriding rules of ethics.

I believe that the death penalty is wrong for many reasons -- economics, racism, difficulties included. But the strongest arguments are those of Truth.

How can we say that murder is so abhorrent that we must murder?
How can we relegate ourselves to the "league of ordinary nations?"

Certainly there are other reasons . . . but the best reasons lie in right and wrong.

I am not against the death penalty in principle. I am not a pacifist. (If the state is not supposed to kill anybody, then the cops get no guns, then there's no law enforcement (and no army), and it's time for either anarchy or libertarianism.) I am against it on grounds of inability to correct error. (I would be against stoning on groundless of it being pointless sadism. But I can hardly kick against sadism when I'm not willing to get rid of prisons.)

Kevin:Cory Maye, however, is a whole nother story. Radley Balko has the grim details here, and even though something about it continues to niggle at me, it hardly matters.

It's almost exactly the same legal circumstances as Waco and Ruby Ridge? Except that Maye is black? And didn't commit a capital crime (manslaughter or murder two at worst) except they made the killing of a cop a capital crime?

ash
['Or is it because you find the story doubtful?']

Incidentally, I didn't mean to imply that Kevin was guilty of the sins of the Democratic elites either (as in cravenness). I'll stop apologizing now.

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One thing often missing from the death penalty discussion is the cruelty of locking people up and throwing away the key, merely because you cannot or will not handle the other two options, to forgive or to draw the logical consequence.

So how about this: No capital punishment, but people with a life sentence will once a year be presented with a gun (or other Weapon of Self Destruction) and the opportunity to end their own life.
No blood on the hands of the judicial system and a final chance for a person, abolished by society in every practical meaning of the word, to regain control of his/her own life. And as a bonus, meaningful closure without actual revenge for at least some of those left behind by the convicts deed(s).

Anyone who claims to be a Christian should remember that Christ himself was the victim of the death penalty wrongly administered. There should be a lesson in that.

One of my favorite lines from Lord of the Rings is when Gandalf tells Frodo - "There are many that die that deserve to live, and many who live who deserve to die."

Which was Tookie???

I'm as liberal as they come. I pine for that perfect world that would render the death penalty moot, but that ain't where we live. - Global Citizen

I pine for that perfect world where a system of justice could be so absolutely certain of the guilt of those it convicts that it could sentence them to death without fear that it would later turn out they'd caught the wrong guy. But that ain't where we live either.

In the case of someone like Tookie, there's no doubt that he is who he is and he did what he did. But we don't have separate categories in our judicial system for "guilty" and "really, most definitely, we saw him do it on national TV guilty". Until we decide to go reverse-Scottish and invent such a super-guilty category, we can't keep the death penalty only for people like Tookie without risking executing innocent people who happen to have dark complexions and bad lawyers.

One of my favorite lines from Lord of the Rings is when Gandalf tells Frodo - "There are many that die that deserve to live, and many who live who deserve to die." Which was Tookie???

Huh? What about one of the many that died that deserved to die?

One of my favorite lines has always been W.H. Auden's critique in the late '40s of one of his own poems from the '30s, which ended with the line "We must love one another or die." "We will die anyway," he pointed out.

What bothers me about Tookie is that not just that he had a prison conversion; eh, sure, move along. But the man did a lot of outreach based on that. He associated his name with a lot of anti-gang and anti-drug work, some of it well-respected.

And now we're going to kill him. No matter how reprehensible his actions (and I assure you I personally find his actions prior to reformation to be amongst the most reprehensible humans are capable of), that's a bad message to be sending. All the kids that Tookie was talking to, talking about how gangs and drugs will ruin your life, well, they'll take whatever message away from this they please. And that message is likely to be, 'The law is arbitrary and justice isn't part of what the US legal system worries about.'

If the death penalty is about sending a message to other potential offenders, well, there you go.

Oh, and, isn't there a middle ground between 'Kill him' and 'He's reformed, let him go'? I think the man should obviously spend the rest of his life in jail. But if his work, his continuing efforts, are praiseworthy, why are we still killing him? It's not just unuseful from a pragmatic standpoint, there's a moral issue there, too. It's not a matter of his reform buying freedom, it's a matter of it buying the difference between life in prison with no parole and death. Are we really planning on saying that no amount of good works can sate our bloodlust?

Kevin,

Your death penalty post sounds too well crafted by half, like you're trying to sound tough on crime but still be "liberal."

You can be tough on crime and think the death penalty is so capriciously applied nationwide as to be unfair. 150 death row exonerations (and growing) show that "convicting" people of capital crimes is a flawed process.

NBarnes,

It's not a matter of his reform buying freedom, it's a matter of it buying the difference between life in prison with no parole and death. Are we really planning on saying that no amount of good works can sate our bloodlust?

Why, yes. But that's not the right way to put it. If it's right to kill someone for doing murder, it's right whether they've repented or not. (Williams, of course, didn't repent, except for co-founding the Crips; he maintained to the last that he didn't do the actual four murders he was convicted of, though no one seems to think he's innocent of all of them.) If there is to be clemency, it shouldn't rest on what the tally is in "good works."

I really, really don't like the idea of death sentences being commuted on the basis of a prisoner's demeanor or elocutionary skills or what have you. I don't like the idea of death sentences at all, as I've said, but sparing the well-spoken and calm while killing off the sullen and irascible is unjust. A human life is a human life, and valuable as such.

Back in the days when I saw things in black and white, much like the dogs so drawn to Republicanism, I believed in the death penalty. As I matured into someone wanting to see things as the really are, the Von Ranke pallet of every color, I realized that the death penalty is actally about people pretending to be gods. Irrevocable punishment brings about injustice as a natural course of things. It also completely erases a person's chance for redemption and disregards that there are places in this country where is immersed in violence from the time they shed the placenta. I will not advocate for the death of anyone, especially strangers. When one looks at the context of sheer misery wrought by the acts of lifetime or a passionate moment as the standard then realizes Ken Lay and others walk free, it is considerable irony indeed that the poor die by the hands of justice and the rich mete it out. Rough sex-extenuating. Rough streets, not so much. There is the occasional BTK killer that must be studied and harrassed for a lifetime, but there are also the innocents who die the worst death of all--that of an anonymous martyr.

"there's not much doubt that Maye doesn't deserve to die"

Right, because, you're God, and you know that for sure.

Sheesh.

Once more:

Torture: Wrong
Death Penalty: Wrong
Vacillating on moral questions: Wrong

Herein lies the rub, Mr. Sanctimonious, er, I mean Graham: If there is a shred of doubt, you simply don't commit the irriversible. That is just elementary. But Grandma always wondered why they called it "common sense" when it's so god-damned rare...

This mad rush by American religious conservatives to wipe out the notion of redemption is just one of the many moral and logical conflicts they find themselves in. What a whacked out bunch of people, and California's governor cowers before them.

"There are many that die that deserve to live, and many who live who deserve to die."

The rest of the Tolkein quote, its main point, went on to the effect: If you can not give life to those who deserve it, then do not be quick to give death to those who deserve it.

The same people who discount Tookie's redemption seem to be perfectly willing to forgive GW Bush's past 'youthful indiscretions'.

Not saying that Tookie should have been released so he could run for Governator, but surely allowing an avowedly bad character to become President has had even worse effects.

I am generally against the death penalty because of the risks involved with executing the innocent. You can't take a do-over with the death penalty. That said, in specific cases where there is no doubt of guilt -- like Mr. Williams or the man who killed Carlie Brucia -- executing an innocent person isn't an issue. In those cases, I feel sympathy for the victims and their families, not the killer. If you don't want to get executed then don't kill someone.

"The same people who discount Tookie's redemption seem to be perfectly willing to forgive GW Bush's past 'youthful indiscretions'."

What! Whatever Bush has done wrong -- and he has done plenty wrong -- he didn't personally kill people. It doesn't matter to me if Williams genuinely repented or not. He killed people and for that he was punished.

Eichmann didn't personally kill anyone either.
What's your point?

Also curious if you would support executing GIs that have killed unarmed pregnant women?

Capital Punishment is like nuclear power: if it could administered/run without error, it'd be OK, but there are these pesky human fallibilities...and the download of a failure is ghastly.
BTW, I work at a left-leaning small college and a student recently put up a detailed set of photographs of Bhopal and the aftermath, the people, the continuing sicknesses, the place, the plant, the hazardous material left everywhere...the wonders of captialism (keep those dividends coming!).

Regardless of what he's done since, the man was a gangster and a thug and hardly deserving of our sympathy.

It's not a question of 'sympathy' for Williams; it's about sympathy for oneself. See, the State of California killed Williams, and not the bureaucratic entity. He was killed in the name of every Californian.

The sign of a mature society is its capacity to look plain at the worst of the worst and still say that it's not for the state to render death. Execution turns the state into Harvey Keitel from 'Pulp Fiction', cleaning up a mess that would otherwise disturb it.

Whatever Bush has done wrong -- and he has done plenty wrong -- he didn't personally kill people.

I think Albert Camus said it best:

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

What are you mentioning Eichmann for? The point isn't that Bush didn't kill anyone, the point is that Williams did! You forgive Bush (or anyone) for minor indiscretions that may or may not have been illegal then move on. Williams killed someone, and the organization he founded has been responsible for hundreds of deaths. Thus, he was punished.

You can't compare Bush's 'youthful indiscretions' with Williams' murders.

Not sure who Kenga was talking to in his question about GIs killing women. My answer is that if there is no doubt of guilt and the act was one of murder then yes I support the death penalty for those GIs. I think an example would be My Lai.

Even if Williams deserves to die, it may not be in our national self-interest to kill him. We've got this guy in prison writing books we like to see in circulation.

If we kill him, the relatives of the victims will feel a lot better, but we won't have him writing those books. I suppose it would "send a message" to people considering murder about what might happen to them 25 years later.

If we don't kill him, the relatives of the victims feel bad, and the wingnuts go ballistic, but we still have him writing those books.

On the whole, I think we would have been better off not to kill him.

Execution turns the state into Harvey Keitel from 'Pulp Fiction', cleaning up a mess that would otherwise disturb it.

Let me clarify that, especially for the libertarians out there: you want the Second Amendment to serve as justification for your personal armory, you get Tookie Williams. And no, sorry, you can't just kill him and wash your hands.

Williams killed someone, and the organization he founded has been responsible for hundreds of deaths. Thus, he was punished.

'Thus'? You've put a fat load of weight on a very brittle 'thus'.

"'Thus'? You've put a fat load of weight on a very brittle 'thus'."

Not sure what your point is. However, whether Williams truly repented, he is a murderer and created an organization that breeds murderers. Whatever the purpose of the death penalty I feel little sympathy for a man who murdered several people and helped cause the death of others. He outlived his victims by some 20-30 years. Even if he was truly sorry for what he did it doesn't change the fact that he took the lives of others.

For the most part I agree that the death penalty should be banned. However, it hasn't yet. Don't turn Williams into something other than what he was.

A couple questions from an old HS debater:

To what problem is the death penalty a solution?
And what makes the death penalty the solution, not just a solution, to that problem.

Assuming that state action 'just because' is per se undesirable, of course..

In all likelihood the death penalty only accomplishes 2 things: it probably gives the victim's families a sense of justice; and it might save the taxpayers some money. I doubt it acts as a deterrence, mainly because it is administered so inconsistently and the appeals process takes forever. If it were administered much quicker and more often it would be more of a deterrent. I don't advocate this step because then we make more mistakes.

Georgia,

What if Tookie Williams actually did repent of his past deeds and was trying to amends for what he'd done? Or do you not believe that a person can be rehabilitated?

So what are the odds that the nice liberals here don't want to talk about Maye because he, instead of doing something merely morally questionable like murder, committed the sin of defending his home w/ a privately owned firearm? Is shooting someone OK as long as you get to associate guns w/ criminals?

Isn't the Maye case the bigger miscarriage of justice?

After watching "The Thin Blue Line" (Erroll Morris), any doubts I had about eliminating the death penalty were erased. Near the end of the film, after the Supreme Court granted a new trial and the actual killer had admitted that he killed the cop, the prosecutor was still defending his actions. Had Adams been executed, he would have felt no compunction about the fact he made a mistake and saw an innocent man condemned to death.

There is no middle ground here. If you believe Tookie got what he deserved, then let's allow court TV to have a second station where, first, they show a summary of the trial and then they show the sentence being carried out. If it's acceptable, it ought to be on TV. Had TV been around in, say, London of the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries, BBC would have broadcast the hangings instead of having some of the thousands who gathered to see it stand way in the back and not have a good view.

As long as Williams doesn't even confess to what there seems little debate he did, clemency was never much of an option, and I have a hard time feelings sympathy.

For awhile, these other deaths help us to forget ours.

Scott -

We liberals aren't discussing the Maye case because the moment we do, you conservatives will turn into a lynch mob. Admit it, part of you wants to fry him because he's an uppity negro that shot a white cop. We're just working to keep the conservative support he has alive; the moment you guys see that the left supports something, you'll turn against it. Because fundamentally, you're selfish evil cocksuckers.

If the state is not supposed to kill anybody, then the cops get no guns, then there's no law enforcement (and no army)

Do you see no difference between firing a gun at a target that is capable of harming others, ideally to INCAPACITATE, and killing a person that is helpless and no threat to anyone at all?

I really don't see how people can oppose torture on moral grounds but support the notion of a death penalty. How can you inflict death upon a helpless, harmless living being in your control?

The more you hate the culprit, the less you love the victim.

Well, Scott, maybe the "nice liberals" aren't discussing Maye as much as you'd like because it's so obvious a miscarriage of justice that there's really nothing to argue about. What's really pathetic is the right-wingers who are using the case to bash liberals even though the Maye travesty was directly brought about by the kinds of people conservatives tend to vote for, and the types of attitudes conservatives typically hold (not even counting the racism), such as "The police are always right, even when they're not"--unless you believe the justice system in Mississippi is overrun by liberals.

I think he was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted, which is one point in his favor;

Even without that, he had redeemed himself, in my opinion, and it was an uncivilized act to execute someone working harder to stop gangs than most of us, and than most of the juvenile crime bureaucracy.

Thank you, m, for finishing the Tolkien quotation that I inadvertently truncated.

Here is perhaps the best quote ever, for those who see capital punishment as "revenge for the victims" -

An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind.
- Gandhi

Death affects the survivors most. The state is really punishing Williams' family and friends and supporters most.

Death is quick, but grief lingers amongst the innocent.

>Do you see no difference between firing a gun at a target that is capable of harming others, ideally to INCAPACITATE, and killing a person that is helpless and no threat to anyone at all?

You've been watching too many movies. There are very, very few marksmen so good that they can, say, shoot out the knees from under a moving, aggressive target. The general rule when firing a gun is that you shoot to kill. If you happen to incapacitate, that's fine too, but it is not your purpose. As for harmless- there is some indication that Williams continued to play some role in the gang he founded from in prison, and he certainly didn't do much to alleviate those doubts- like say, by cooperating with law enforcement.

So, sorry, Tookie. You live like a thug, you die like a thug. He got a better death than any of his victims did, and a lot longer life. And I'm sure at the end he felt good about not being a "snitch".

Am I the only one who keeps thinking Stanley Tucci when the newscaster says "Stanley 'Tookie' Williams"? (Yes, I know "Tucci" has a "ch" sound.)

Thanks Kevin. Thanks for letting us know who should live and who should die. I suggest we let Kevin be the sole arbiter of life and death in this country.

Of all the bs posts you have ever posted, this one contains the most bs.

The question is a simple one: do you wish to give your government the power to end life in the name of its citizenry? If yes, you stand with those that cheered the executioner on as he ended Williams life. If no, you are against the death penalty,

Basing your decision on individual cases is silly. Every case is different. Should we base our laws on mass murderers or small time crooks? Or should base our laws on the basic morality of its citizens. I believe we have, in fact, based the death penalty law on the moral standing of this nation -- after all, any nation that would lie its way into war, would attack a nation that did not first attack us, is an immoral nation. Having the death penalty only reinforces that status.

And the fact that Kevin Drum is in favor of the death penalty and is so frickin' sure Williams should be dead only illuminates the moral character of the person running this blog. Kevin Drum, I hope your thirst for blood was satisfied last night; for me, I was sickened to think that my government, in cold blood, and with malice of forethought, ended the life of one of its citizens.

Well, Scott, maybe the "nice liberals" aren't discussing Maye as much as you'd like because it's so obvious a miscarriage of justice that there's really nothing to argue about.

Um, isn't there something to do, you know, like raise the roof? Complain? Since when do liberals go silent because they're so right there's "nothing to argue about", but they aren't getting what they want?

We're just working to keep the conservative support he has alive; the moment you guys see that the left supports something, you'll turn against it. Because fundamentally, you're selfish evil cocksuckers.

If your goal is to oppose the death penalty, a case that generates more conservative and moderate sympathy would be a better one to make an issue of, unless conservative objections somehow pollute the moral purity of this example of a miscarriage of justice.

the cory maye case has nothing to do with the morality of the death penalty. this is judicial murder, pure and simple.

It's really not limited to the South. I've been following these two cases in detail for the last several years:

Marty Tankleff (NY): www.FreeMarty.org
Jimmy Dennis (PA): www.JimmyDennis.net

And PA in particular has had many wrongful convictions.

MJ Memphis, note that I said 'ideally to incapacitate'.

As for continuing involvement in gang-related business, there are certainly ways to end that besides death, aren't there?

So what are the odds that the nice liberals here don't want to talk about Maye because he, instead of doing something merely morally questionable like murder, committed the sin of defending his home w/ a privately owned firearm?

The same odds as George W. Bush riding the winner of the Kentucky Derby? Thanks for playing, Maye; you can resume masturbating to pictures of S&W .50s.

Ugh, need coffee. Aimed at Scott, obviously.

Had Maye not committed the sin of 'self-defense while black', he'd not be on death row.

Thanks for playing, Maye; you can resume masturbating to pictures of S&W .50s.

Um, Maye is the guy on death row despite being wrongly convicted - you know, the kind of person liberals usually care about? Did you even read the original post?

mithimithi,

Sure there are ways to keep people like Mr. Williams from continuing their criminal connections behind bars. I suspect, though, that the means to do so would be strenuously objected to by the same folks who are bemoaning Tookie's fate now.

I saw a suggestion elsewhere that I could support, with regards to death row inmates- abolish the death penalty, move to life imprisonment, *but* make the imprisonment much, much tougher. No outside contact (except, presumably, with a lawyer for appeals); no book deals; no interviews; no nothing. You get 3 meals, a cot, reading material, and all the time in the world, with absolutely no possibility of parole, and the knowledge that, barring a successful appeal, the only way you will leave prison is in a coffin. How does that sound?

On the redemption/rehabilitation defense- this would be a much stronger argument for Mr. Williams if he actually behaved like he was genuinely rehabilitated. If he had apologized for his crimes, worked with the authorities to help dismantle the criminal organization he helped establish, and otherwise behaved like a reformed man, he would have deserved clemency. Failing that, it seems reasonable to conclude that he was more interested in saving his skin than in genuinely making restitution for his crimes. That being the case, I can't be sorry that society cut that particular cancer out of itself.

If "liberals" have been quiet about the Maye case, it's because, more than anything, not enough know about it. (Actually, Scott, I thought you were referring to the relatively few mentions of it on this thread.) It might have been mentioned first on conservative blogs, but I've seen it brought up more and more on liberal blogs recently. And before it's all over liberal legal-defense groups will probably play a role in it if they're not already (in all the mentions of this case, I haven't seen any details about possible appeals and who is involved), while the "cops and prosecutors are infallible" types will continue to seek Maye's death.

And I don't necessarily consider it a death-penalty issue: It would be as much a travesty if he got life in prison, or 30 years, or whatever.

And again, Scott, though you try to grab the moral high ground by criticizing the straw man of "liberals who don't care what is happening to Cory Maye," remember that it is the conservative mindset, as reflected in the Mississippi justice system (including the jury) that has put Maye in the fix he is in. What are you doing, Scott? Are you complaining, other than in an attempt to make ideological hay of it?

Nearly nine years ago, my family's best friend and my elder son's godfather was savagely murdered in his home, by a crack head. The police caught him, and he is serving a 25 years to life sentence. If this had occured in, say Texas, it would have been a capital case (white victim, Black perp.; you do the math). Yet all of my friend's friends and family, and myself, would have begged to spare the life of the perp. As John McCain says about torture, it's not about him or them, it's about us.

Interesting how so many of the families of Tim McVeigh's victims felt so empty after his execution, and that a number of them converted to the anti-death penalty camp. Yup.

I choose to not take the Pontius Pilate stance on the death penalty. WWJD? Hard to imagine Jesus throwing the switch.

Glad Tookie's dead. He was the leader of a deadly gang who probably committed many more murders than we are privy to. I would bet that he ordered a great many more too.

Maye on the other hand...I agree under those circumstances he should not even be in jail let alone on death row. But in my humblest of opinions even if Maye WAS the subject of the warrant it is still understandable that he would have shot someone breaking into his house. I for one believe that there should be provisions for situations where it could be argued that the subject of a no knock warrant could have fired his weapon ignorant of the fact that it was a cop.
In Mayes case, daddy made sure Maye was convicted because it was his son who got shot. I won't say that I wouldn't have done the same thing if it were my kid that was killed.
As for racism/death penalty. I won't even dignify that with a response. Case by case people. Case by case.

I don't think the issue is whether the death of monster--Charles Manson, for example--is a loss our society, but whether the society is behaving monstrously in killing him.

Government has the right to defend itself, but it's hard to see how dragging a misbegotten killer like Williams from his cell and ceremoniously poisonously him has made us safer.

On the other hand, the execution in Singapore will probably have its intended effect. The government there doesn't want heroin in its country. Had I been planning to smuggle some there, I think by now I would have reconsidered.

As John McCain says about torture, it's not about him or them, it's about us.

That's exactly right.

Advocates of the death penalty really should ask themselves the question, why is it that we no longer hang murderers, or put them in front of a firing squad, or cut off their heads? Why do we feel obliged to be as "humane" as possible?

If the argument for capital punishment were entirely a matter of what the perpetrator deserves, why would not any of those fates be well deserved in cases of vicious murders?

You see, even the most adamant death penalty supporter gets that there would be something deeply wrong and degrading about our society reducing itself to that level of brutality in meting out punishment.

What they fail to acknowledge, simply, is what other civilized societies across the earth have come to recognize: the death penalty itself, no matter how "humanely" administered", is degrading and repulsive.

It does no good to put lipstick on that moral pig.

Cheney--

You were told yesterday not to come back. You spammed the Howard Dean thread and now you think everything is OK?

Do you think you can get away with spamming a thread in order to shut down discussion and debate and not be called on it?

Guess what, Charlie? Your time in the sun has ended. No one cares what a blog thread spammer has to say--ask the Chinese spammers who hit the thread every day.

You are as irrelevant to any discussion as they are.

I am not against the death penalty in principle. I am not a pacifist. (If the state is not supposed to kill anybody, then the cops get no guns, then there's no law enforcement (and no army), and it's time for either anarchy or libertarianism.)

You can be against the death penalty in principle without being against law enforcement and military ability to use deadly force as needed; you can be against, for instance, the state engaging in killing of those subject to its authority other than in defense of others from imminent harm.

And again, Scott, though you try to grab the moral high ground by criticizing the straw man of "liberals who don't care what is happening to Cory Maye," remember that it is the conservative mindset, as reflected in the Mississippi justice system (including the jury) that has put Maye in the fix he is in. What are you doing, Scott? Are you complaining, other than in an attempt to make ideological hay of it?

It reflect more of a govt mindset than a conservative one; in this particular case, it's local cops. I don't see many high-profile Dems coming out against the WOD, which was the ultimate cause of this type of no-knock raid.

In all likelihood the death penalty only accomplishes 2 things: it probably gives the victim's families a sense of justice; and it might save the taxpayers some money.

Well, it certainly doesn't do the latter -- it is more expensive, in practice, than life imprisonment -- and I wouldn't want to try to argue that the latter is a justification for premeditated and deliberate killing.

It is grammatically correct to be agnostic about the death penalty (as an aside).

Philosophically; if a few innocent people die every few years and if I consider this artifact to be fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme, then I am under no requirement for moral absolutes.

Kevin-
You say that you do not oppose the death penalty per se, but only oppose it because it is impossible to administer it fairly. That sounds reasonable at first; however, other forms of punishment (imprisonment, etc) are also administered unfairly and inefficiently, but I presume you do not oppose them. So it must be something about the death penalty per se that you oppose. And to those who claim that since it is wrong for the individual to kill, therefore it is wrong for the state to kill, remember that it is also wrong for an individual to lock someone up in a cage or force a payment of money from him. So you must also believe that it is wrong for the state to imprison or fine people, or find a better argument.

I'm with you a hundred percent. The death penalty is stupid. There are the issues of fairness certainty that you raised. There is also the issue of morals: why kill someone if you can keep him incarcarated without him hurting anyone else? What is the point of that? The only point I can think of is vengeance.

All that being said, If guilty, I don't see anything that makes Williams more deserving of clemency than anyone else. I find his personal story to be unconvincing.

One other thing: Does Snoop Dogg realize that by glorifying a life of drug use, alcohol, womanizing, misogyny, and violence, he has no credibility in speaking to issues of justice. It is ridiculous to see a man who poisons the culture with dehumanizing garbage talk as if he has a concern for justice. If he did, he would think about the lifestyle he glorifies in his music. I like his beats, but if your lyrics are always glorifying the negative, it ruins your crediblity when you try to speak about the positive.

There's nothing wrong with the death penalty. But having a death penalty in a judicial system in which you get the outcome you can afford is simply cruel.

Not particularly unusual, but cruel.

So, fix the judicial system and expand the death penalty to include any repeat offender of a violent crime (and ANY violent crime committed while in prison) and I'll be a happy guy.
.

Where is the NRA? This is a perfect opportunity for the NRA to talk about how important it is to be able to defend your home and family with a gun.

On the other hand, the execution in Singapore will probably have its intended effect.

As I understand it, there are signs posted in the airport in Bali with letter 3 feet high: Do not carry drugs into Indonesia! Drug use is illegal. Carrying or selling large amounts is punishable by imprisonment or death.

Australian kids are still smuggling in heroin and hash, getting caught, and doing time. Deterrence is limited by the rationality of the people being deterred - and by the presumptive effectiveness of those doing the deterring.

Thought Tolkien deserved a proper rendering of his on-point lines:

"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."

Even without that, he had redeemed himself, in my opinion, and it was an uncivilized act to execute someone working harder to stop gangs than most of us, and than most of the juvenile crime bureaucracy.

That's just because you think the government should be more concerned about solving problems than inflicting pain on bad people.

So, you admit, Steve, that the death penalty CAN be an effective deterrent?

Of course it can be an effective deterent.

Want to cut down on jay-walking? Make it a capital offense. Of course, life in prison might work too.

Trouble is, when it comes the sorts of crimes for which capital punishment is actually employed, such as murder, the evidence suggests that it has on balance no deterent effect at all -- look at the studies.

Somehow murderers aren't a reflective sort who carefully weigh the differences between life in prison and execution before they perpetrate their act.

So it must be something about the death penalty per se that you oppose.

As about a hundred posters have already noted, CE