Justices decline to block Williams' execution

Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips street gang, moved a step closer to the death chamber when the California Supreme Court refused to reopen his case in four murders and halt the state’s highest-profile execution since the death penalty was reinstated nearly three decades ago.

In a last-ditch legal move, Williams alleged that shoddy forensic testing and other errors wrongly sent him to San Quentin State Prison, where he is scheduled die by lethal injection on December 13.

Lawyers for the convicted murderer – who claims he redeemed himself on death row by penning anti-gang books for kids – wanted to re-examine ballistics evidence that showed Williams’ shotgun was used to kill three people during a motel robbery in 1979.

The court voted 4-2 yesterday without comment to deny Williams’ petition. Chief Justice Ronald George voted to reopen the case.

“We think the chief justice’s dissent highlights the seriousness of the issues raised,” defence attorney Jonathan Harris said.

He was unsure whether he would ask the federal courts to intervene again.

The ruling came as death penalty opponents rallied around the state urging the governor to spare Williams’ life because of his death row redemption.

A mobile phone call from Williams interrupted a Los Angeles rally on his behalf attended by actor Jamie Foxx, rapper Snoop Dogg and dozens of students.

“Stan, it’s Jamie! How are you, my brother?” Foxx, who once portrayed the death-row inmate, said into the receiver. He then held the phone to a microphone so Williams could address the crowd.

“I’d like to thank all you youngsters,” Williams said. “I am honoured, truly honoured, and regardless of what happens to me, whether I am alive or executed, I know you all will remember me.”

Foxx gave the phone back and turned to the crowd.

“If that don’t move you, I don’t know what it takes,” the Oscar-winning actor said.

Williams, 51, is in line to become one of three California condemned inmates to be executed within months unless he is granted clemency by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, or a federal court intervenes.

“We’re all remaining optimistic, we’re all remaining prayerful,” Bonnie Williams-Taylor, the ex-wife of Williams and mother of one of his sons, said at a rally in Los Angeles.

Williams was condemned in 1981 – four years after the death penalty was reinstated.

He has maintained his innocence, claiming among other things that fabricated testimony sent him to death row.

The California Supreme Court, the federal trial and appellate courts, and the US Supreme Court have ruled against him in earlier appeals, which set the stage for the execution.

Williams is asking for clemency from Schwarzenegger for killing Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang and Yu-Chin Yang Lin in the motel robbery, and Albert Owens, a 7-Eleven clerk gunned down in a separate killing.

Schwarzenegger has agreed to hear Williams’ clemency petition in his office on December 8. If clemency is granted it would commute his sentence to life without parole.

“What I want to do is make sure we make the right decisions, because we’re dealing here with a person’s life,” Schwarzenegger said yesterday.

While in prison, Williams has been nominated for Nobel peace and literature prizes by a Swiss legislator, college professors and others for his series of children’s books and international peace efforts intended to curtail youth gang violence.

Williams and his high school friend, Raymond Washington, started the Crips in Los Angeles in 1971 and it grew into one of the nation’s most notorious street gangs.

Williams had also sought records about an accomplice who testified against him in the murder of Owens. That witness, now imprisoned in Canada for murder, testified that they robbed a Whittier convenience store where Williams shot Owens twice in the back. Defence lawyers questioned the witness’ credibility.