Gang founder loses last appeal

CALIFORNIA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday refused to spare the life of Stanley Tookie Williams, the founder of the murderous Crips gang.

Mr Schwarzenegger was unswayed by pleas from Hollywood stars and petitions from more than 50,000 people who said that Williams had made amends during more than two decades in prison by writing a memoir and books about the dangers of gangs.

“After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency,” Mr Schwarzenegger said, less than 12 hours before the execution.

Mr Schwarzenegger could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.

With a reprieve from the federal courts considered unlikely, Williams, 51, is set to die by injection at San Quentin State Prison this morning for murdering four people in 1979.

Prosecutors and victims’ advocates contended Williams was undeserving of clemency from the governor because he did not own up to his crimes and refused to inform on fellow gang members.

They also argued that the Crips gang that Williams co-founded in Los Angeles in 1971 is responsible for hundreds of deaths.

Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down a clerk in a convenience store holdup and a mother, father and daughter in a motel robbery weeks later. He claimed he was innocent.