Tookie goes on a diet

It's Tookie's new look. Do you like it?

In a short while, Stanley "Tookie" Williams will most likely be executed by lethal injection, having been denied clemency by Gov.Schwarzenegger, and no doubt some snide remarks are going to be made about this being what one gets when one elects a film star governor. Although, some of the same liberals who make those snide remarks seem to have no difficulty at all with the idea of following an actor's lead when the actor is a liberal one. For anybody who was leaning toward support for the snarkiness, however, I'd urge them to read the governor's statement. There is nothing of the good old boy in it. It is a very persuasive piece of writing that makes a good case that there is no case to be made for special consideration.

The date of the crime, alone, should make one think - February 28, 1979. There are people well into middle age, right now, who were still in high school when these murders were carried out. That isn't long enough for appeals? Let's read some of the details. Like the one about him laughing about the sound made by his victim after he was shot, or the one of him scheming to blow his captors to pieces - with notes to this effect written in his own handwriting, or his refusal to even apologize, claiming innocence in the face of what most would consider overwhelming evidence of guilt. And on Tookie's side, the side of the man who organized the Crips street gang, and set them off on their trail of mass murder? He wrote a few children's books. Proving, what, that he's literate? He's playing us, or at least, he's trying to, it seems pretty clear to me.

I have, in the past, spoken in opposition to the death penalty, and I'm still opposed to, yes, even in a case like Tookie's. I haven't forgotten the Burge case in Chicago, and I know all too well how readily some witnesses can be persuaded to lie. "Beyond a shadow of a doubt" is never as far beyond it as it ought to be, certainly not in the world we live in. I have in the past suggested that scorn is sometimes a moral obligation, when encountering actions, attitudes or opinions that are far beyond the pale. But in this case, I can't put those two positions together and come out with condemnation of anybody but Mr.Williams. Could he become something other than the monster he seems to be? I would think so, which is one reason why I hesitate to endorse a killing, but do I know this to be true? I'd be lying if I said "yes", and I certainly wouldn't suggest that such an outcome would be very likely.

When we condemn people for what we perceive to be their moral lapses, in some sense we condemn them for not trying to do the right thing, or at least trying in a very lacksadaiscal fashion. I certainly could not bring myself to condemn somebody for feeling compassion for Tookie's fallen victims, or for feeling rage at the thought of what was done to them. Without some measure of rage, what would it even mean to say that anybody enjoyed society's protection? The bad guys would just wait until others were looking away before they struck, knowing that if they acted unopposed in the moment, that there would be no consequences to fear. The desire for revenge, then, to take an eye for an eye, may not make us feel good about ourselves, but nature bred it into us for a reason - a people who lacked it couldn't protect themselves, or preside over anything but a society that offered one the life of a character in a horror movie, always waiting for the next blow to fall.

The issue between those who would execute somebody like Tookie and those of us who would put him in a nice, distant prison - I'm thinking that the interior of Antarctica might be a decent location for a penal colony - isn't one between good and evil, but one of differing judgment calls as to how far is too far and how much revenge is enough, and on this what else can one do but agree to disagree? Tookie is no boy scout; anybody with roots in a place that has been consumed by one of the urban war zones knows in his gut just how evil one has to be to stand out in such a crowd, and there is no denying that the world will be safer once he has departed it. Is there a better way of getting that safety? Perhaps, but I'll tell you one thing. The thought that Stanley Williams will probably draw his last breath while I'm in bed isn't going to cost me much sleep.