Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Capital offence

So Tookie Williams is dead. If you don't know more about the self proclaimed founding member of the Crips gang from L.A then a quick Wikipedia search will do it.

There has been a media frenzy around this execution like few others, as the rich and famous have joined the voices raised to ask for clemency in his case. Citing work for children (refuting the glamour of gang banging) and the effort to negotiate a truce between the Bloods and the Crips and other gangs in 1992 as signaling redemption.

Was he guilty? Perhaps. If not of the 4 murders he was found guilty of, then certainly he would have perpetrated some crime as a gang leader. Was he a fall guy? Maybe.

Should he die for his crimes?

The answer to this question is quite clearly no.

Any reasonable human being, from Desmond Tutu to former Crip Snoop Dog, know this to be so.

How can a civilised Western super-power even claim to be such when people are still killed by the state in the name of Justice? How can an individual working for the state live their life after setting the drip to deliver pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride to stop the criminal's breathing and heart?

I don't know. It disgusts me.

Stanley Williams is not the only man on death row.

No comments: