JURIST - Paper Chase: Crips co-founder executed in California

[JURIST] Crips gang co-founder and convicted murderer Stanley Tookie Williams [advocacy website] died at 12:35 AM Tuesday morning after being executed by lethal injection at California's San Quentin State Prison. The execution occurred a day after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger refused to grant Williams clemency [statement of decision, PDF; JURIST report], finding that Williams had shown no remorse for the killings for which he was convicted. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) [advocacy website] had urged [JURIST report] Schwarzenegger to grant clemency after the California Supreme Court had denied a stay [JURIST report] of Williams' execution. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the US Supreme Court also denied last-minute requests to stay the execution Monday. Williams was executed for killing four people in two separate 1979 robberies. Williams, who was convicted in 1981, spent two decades on death row where he wrote children's books about the dangers of gang life. About 1,000 death penalty opponents and a few death penalty supporters communed outside the prison to await the execution. AP has more.

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