Cinnaman

Was Tookie's Wonderful Life Enough Payment?

Let’s think about Stanley “Tookie” Williams.

Let’s pretend that prior to February of 1979, when he shot four people in cold blood, Tookie Williams had been a wonderful person

Let’s say that all along he had been writing books telling kids not to get mixed up with gangs.

Let’s say he had been making crude little drawings and writing semi-intellectual arguments that the death penalty is wrong.

Let’s say he had been making telephone speeches to churches, schools and community groups explaining the dangers of gang warfare.

AND ONLY THEN, let's pretend, did Tookie Williams walk into a 7-Eleven Store, force the clerk into the back room and shoot him twice in the back.

And let’s say that less than two weeks later this previously-wonderful person, this Tookie Williams, walked into a motel office and killed in cold blood the elderly owners and their daughter before walking away with $100.

Got that? He was a good guy, then he went out and butchered four people. Are you ready for the question because here it comes:

At that point, should Tookie Williams have been sentenced to death for the crimes he committed according to a jury verdict?

Before you answer, you might want to read just how brutal his crimes were, here http://www.nationalreview.com/dunphy/dunphy200511280809.asp

So the question is, would Tookie’s hypothetical wonderful life prior to the cold-blooded murders mitigate the crimes? Would it have mattered how great a guy he was before he became a butcher?

If you answer that no, Good Guy Tookie should have been sentenced to death anyway, then you probably aren’t swayed by the good deeds he actually has performed while on Death Row.

Some people work harder and better under deadlines. Tookie was under a monster of a deadline, as in: “Tookie, this date will be the day you die, so make the most of what life you have left.”

When they awoke on the mornings of their deaths, Albert Owens and the three Yang family members did not have the benefit of a deadline. They did not know that, whatever hopes and dreams they harbored, they had only until later that day to realize them.

The Death Penalty is a hard thing, especially for those who abhor the killing of babies-in-waiting within the womb.

So I wonder why it is that so many of these murderers, who seem to become wonderful people in the time before their executions, fight so very hard to stay alive. I wonder how much they really think about sacrificial love.

I don’t know if Tookie Williams was a Christian, but many of the Death Row inmates are. Of those who are, I wonder if they have ever pondered the Biblical quote attributed to Jesus Christ that says:

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

And I wonder if people like Tookie ever look at their monstrous sins and decide that execution is a good thing to do, a sacrifical thing to do. Books are nice, but if Tookie had willingly ended his life as penance, wouldn’t that have been an even stronger lesson to those whom Tookie wanted to teach?

The guess here is that such a willing action, laying down his life for friends -- those he killed and those he wanted to save -- would have lasted longer than the pages of any book.

posted by Lou Antosh @ 6:46 PM