It’s over for Tookie
By Marc • Dec 13th, 2005 • Category: In Other News...., ProLife, the RanterI really have mixed feelings on this.
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. – Convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang co-founder whose case stirred a national debate about capital punishment versus the possibility of redemption, was executed Tuesday morning.
On the one had, I really don’t understand why in a country with our wealth and resources we still find it necessary to kill convicted criminals. I am obviously opposed to the use of capital punishment. I feel it should only be used when there is no other to protect society from the criminal. In our country this is simply not the case.
On the other hand, I am ecstatic that the liberal Hollywood elite lost in their bid to abuse the checks and balances built in to our justice system to prevent our laws from being enforced. I just don’t understand the mentality of some of these people who would work so hard to save the life of an unrepentant convicted murderer while at the same time insisting that when a unborn child is ripped from his or her mother’s womb and brutally murdered, it’s a woman’s right to have it done. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Some of these Hollywood folks are saying that Tookie is innocent. That’s their excuse for working so hard for clemency. Well, they need a dictionary. “Clemency” is for the guilty repentant. A “pardon” is for the innocent. Either these people are just plain stupid, or they were in this just for the publicity.
Of course now that Tookie’s gone, you won’t hear from them trying to change the law they seem to be so against. You won’t hear a peep from them about how we need to abolish this “horrible death penalty”. There’s no press in this I guess. It’s too bad in a way, it would be nice to be on the same side with them for a change. On the other maybe I should be happy. Being on the same side of an argument with the likes of Susan Sarandon and Jesse Jackson might just be too surreal.
Marc is a Catholic technology geek living in Tennessee. He blogs at Wild Tangents and is the host of the Catholic Vocations Podcast.
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I have only one problem with the death penalty. I have been a proponent of death in cases that are savage in extreme. I believe that this is a punishment that is a last resort to punish a criminal. I take NO joy in this–it is a bitter, hollow justice. He committed a crime where he made a conscious choice to take 5 lives where he KNEW his life would be forefit if he was caught and prosecuted. He was and received the death penalty. Unfortunately the 5 victims and the sheriff’s deputies that he LATER killed trying to escape do not get a choice or a chance to appeal. Who speaks for them or their families? I have seen the actual pictures and a 12 gauge shotgun fired point blank= CLOSED CASKET. Rather than have Tookie or Charles Manson released, pardoned , or given clemency, I believe that this punishment is unfortunate but appropriate. I defend and support life whenever possible however, the dealth penalty has its place in our system. God used the dealth penalty after a certain time–look to the flood, the story of Lot, The Israelites spending 40 years in the desert untill an entire generation died. The church applied the death penalty itself.
We must protect the innocent. Life in prison does not mean anything anymore. Witness the parole hearings for Manson and others who have no business getting released. My issue with the death penalty is more pragmatic-related to cost-it simply costs the state too much money. However, there are still cases where it needs to be applied.
The problem I have with the death penalty – especially in this country – is that it is almost a form of entertainment for some people. I overhear people saying things like “I’ll be glad when *he’s* dead,” and I can’t help but wonder how different is that from the attitude of the killer? Oh, but the killer did something really bad, so he “deserves” to die, I hear you cry. In the killer’s eyes, whoever it was that he killed also “deserved” their death, for whatever reason his brain had come up with. The only way a civilized society could even think of the death penalty – if it could bear to think of it at all – should be through a mist of tears at the horror of ending another’s life.