Tookie v Arnold

The death penalty

Dec 14th 2005 LOS ANGELES
From The Economist print edition

A tussle where one man died, but neither won

IN THE end, Arnold Schwarzenegger was unmoved by the pleas of his Hollywood friends, of the Rev Jesse Jackson, of Snoop Dogg, of Bianca Jagger and all the other luminaries begging him to spare the life of Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the 51-year-old co-founder of the Los Angeles street-gang known as the Crips. “Is Williams's redemption complete and sincere,” mused California's governor, “or is it just a hollow promise?”

Answering his own question, Mr Schwarzenegger argued that there could be no possibility of clemency unless Mr Williams were first to apologise for the murder of four people in two separate armed robberies in February and March 1979. But throughout his 24 years on death row in San Quentin prison, Mr Williams maintained his innocence, basing his claim for mercy on his renunciation of the gangs and a series of books warning children against the life he had led.

For Mr Schwarzenegger, that was not enough: “In this case,” wrote the governor in his decision on December 12th to deny clemency, “the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do.” Accordingly, Mr Williams died by lethal injection in the early hours of December 13th.

The decision to kill Mr Williams was the most angst-ridden for any California governor since Ronald Reagan spared a mentally deficient murderer some 38 years ago. Mr Schwarzenegger was particularly swayed by the fact that Mr Williams chose to name George Jackson among the dedications of his book, “Life in Prison”. Jackson died in a violent attempt to get out of San Quentin in 1971 after a riot left three officers and three inmates dead. The inclusion of Jackson, argued the governor, showed that Mr Williams “still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems”.

Refusing clemency was, in political terms, a safer choice than granting it. Nationwide, the number of people being sent to death row has fallen sharply, as doubts have risen about its efficacy and juries have opted to send people to jail without parole; the number of executions is also down (see chart above). But most Californians support the death penalty (54% of Democrats and 87% of Republicans, according to a Field poll last year). Significantly, neither Phil Angelides nor Steve Westly, the two Democrats who have declared their intention to run against Mr Schwarzenegger in next year's election, opposes the death penalty.

One reason for public support may be that California's executions—thanks to a careful appeals system—are so rare. Mr Williams is only the 12th person to be executed in the state since the Supreme Court re-instated the death penalty in 1976. By contrast, Texas has executed 355.
California does not yet have its equivalent of Ruben Cantu—a San Antonio man who was executed in 1993 for a shooting that the Houston Chronicle seems to have now proved he almost certainly did not commit.

Mr Schwarzenegger is still trying to gain his political footing. It is barely a month since the electorate convincingly rejected four ballot initiatives sponsored by the governor in a special election widely regarded as expensive and unnecessary. That result convinced the governor that he had veered too far to the right—and had better reclaim the centre ground that got him elected in the first place.

Mr Schwarzenegger's immediate answer has been to hire as a new chief-of-staff Susan Kennedy, an openly lesbian, Democratic, abortion-rights activist who was a chief aide to the Gubernator's Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis. For many of the Republican faithful, Ms Kennedy's appointment was a provocation, barely softened by a subsequent shuffle that shunted Terry Tamminen, a liberal Democrat, from his post as cabinet secretary and replaced him with Fred Aguiar, a conservative Republican. In their fury, conservatives are even talking of drafting Mel Gibson as a Republican opponent to the governor in next June's primary. That may be so much posturing—but imagine how much angrier the right would be if Tookie Williams were still alive.

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