SUPREME COURT DECLINES FURTHER REVIEW OF CALIFORNIA
MURDERER’S CLAIMS
Execution Delays May Be Over for Gang Founder “Tookie”
Williams
What should be the last legal obstacle to the execution of California
murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams was removed today as the
United States Supreme Court refused to reconsider claims of racial bias
rejected by the federal Court of Appeals last year. Williams, who was
convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 on multiple counts of murder,
is the co-founder of the notorious “Crips” street gang.
“The Court’s refusal to grant additional review marks the
end of this murdering drug dealer’s 25-year odyssey through a legal
process that wasted years and millions in tax dollars re-examining a
case where the guilt of the murderer was beyond question,” said
Michael Rushford, President of the Sacramento based Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation. “Perhaps now, he will finally get the punishment
that a jury unanimously agreed he deserved,” added Rushford.
In 1979, Williams and three accomplices got together to smoke PCP and
rob local merchants in Whittier, CA. After unsuccessful attempts to
rob a liquor store and a restaurant, the group robbed a 7-Eleven store
at gunpoint. After ordering the clerk to his knees, Williams killed
him with a gunshot to the head. He later laughed as he told his friends
how the victim gurgled as he lay dying. Two weeks later, Williams murdered
a motel owner, his wife and daughter during a robbery that netted $50,
bragging to fellow gang members about how he “blew them away.”
During the decades following his conviction and sentence, as his various
claims of trial and sentencing errors have been dragged through the
courts, Williams has authored children’s books discouraging involvement
with gangs and drugs and become a celebrity among death penalty opponents.
In 2000, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Swiss Parliament
Member Mario Fehr and other outspoken opponents of capital punishment.
“The damage Mr. Williams has done to the tens of thousands, whose
lives have been destroyed by drugs distributed by his gang, and the
hundreds murdered in gang-related turf wars and drive-by shootings cannot
be erased by children’s books or misplaced celebrity,” said
Rushford. “His case represents what happens when our legal system
fails to balance the rights of the defendant with those of his victims,”
he said.
The Court also denied review of Lodi murderer Michael Morales today.
With the Court’s recent denial of review of the case of Clarence
Ray Allen, California now has three murderers on death row who have
exhausted the usual opportunities for additional delay of their executions.
Michael Rushford can be reached for comment at (916)
446-0345.
The Criminal Justice Legal Foundation helped win seven United States
Supreme Court decisions benefitting law enforcement during the Court’s
2004/2005 term.
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