I have been lurking on this site for over a year now but have not been an active participant in the discussion until now. Primarily, this is due to the fact that, while I consider myself a Democrat, I am afraid that my views on a couple of issues remove me from the realm of the ideologically pure. And so I am loathe to broach this topic but I feel I must speak my mind.
I read with great pleasure the diary by Buck Mulligan on this very subject and I found his views sage and thought provoking. You can find his diary here
http://buck-mulligan.dailykos.com/
I do not support the death penalty. The inequities of race and class which cloud our society and judicial system have been well documented. I grow weary of turning on the news and seeing yet another poor (income) man (usually black) being freed from prison after a few decades of wrongful imprisonment. That said however, I do not feel that the death penalty is in itself injust or inhumane.
I believe that this life is all there is. Stanley T. Williams brutally killed four human beings in 1979. He took away from them all that they were and all that they ever would be. His execution may have been punishment, deterence, or vengeance, this I do not know. However, no matter what motivated the state to put Mr. Williams to death, I do believe his execution was justice.
There are millions of people in this nation that live with a legacy of oppression and discrimination, both past and present. They eke out their existance, abandoned, shunned, and despised by the wealthy ruling classes. And yet, they do not sell drugs, they do not form gangs, they do not harm their fellow man.
I have not yet educated myself on the upbringing and childhood of Mr. Williams, but suffice it to say, I will acknowledge that he was probably a victim of the institutionalized discrimination that exists yet today towards African Americans in this country. No doubt this molded and shaped him, and helped warp his mind into that of a cold blooded killer who shot a helpless man in the back 'because he was white', and who spoke of the murdered Yang family as 'buddha-heads', a derogatory name for Asians.
Society, we as a whole, must bear some of the responsibility for making Tookie into the angry young man that he was early in March of 1979. How much? I cannot say, but it is morally imperative that we as democrats be fighting hard for economic and social justice for all, for judicial and penal reforms that will ensure equality and turn young people back from the road that Tookie chose to walk down 26 years ago.
And yes, all the aforementioned things aside, Stanley Williams chose to murder four innocent human beings. He was not provoked by a racial epithet, he was motivated by money. For the grand sum of a few hundred dollars he snuffed out the lives of four people.
I am not a pacifist, I believe that there comes a point when the evils are so great that it is morally permissible to commit violence. But if society's racism is to be used as an excuse for the crimes Williams commited, I would like to know this. Did Tookie, who was 25 at the time of the killings, ever vote? Did he protest? Did he march in the streets? Did he do charity work, or try and better his community? Stanley Williams was not a revolutionary, he was a thug and a killer.
Even after learning of the brutality of his crimes, I would have supported his death sentence being commuted had he shown the humility to own up to his actions and apologize to the families of the victims. Without such a gesture, there was no evidence of redemption, or reformation, as you will. At the end Tookie thought only of himself, much as he had 26 years before.
While you may disagree with my feelings about the execution of Mr. Williams, I am sure we are in agreement that more must be done to prevent the tragic circumstances that lead us to this point, and I am honored to be able to be a member of such a great group of people, working for a better America.
I try not to be a dogmatic person, and I am on a journey like everyone else, trying to grow a bit each day. I have read many, many good things here over the past year, things which make me think about my views and sometimes change them. Perhaps one day I will come to realize the death penalty is inhumane and unjust, perhaps I will not. But for now, I will shed no tears for Stanley Williams.
Rest in Peace: Albert Owens, Yen-Yi Yang, Tsai-Shai Yang, and Yee-Chen Lin