Tookie Williams

Well stated.

In the end, it seems to me that if an inmate who works to prevent others from joining gangs is worth more to society alive than dead.  This is a "finger in the wind" politician at his worst. 

No one is served when another human being is killed, we all become less human for it.

I don't disagree with your post or the sentiment of this thread, but you have no idea why he made the decision he did. 

I have to disagree...

Just because a guy writes a book or two and makes a few speeches doesnt change what he did. He killed and even laughed and made a remark about the guy gurgling while he died.

We have laws with consequences and if you dont obey the law you pay the price. He is paying the price for what he did, he new the consequences at the time he commited the acts. Changing your ways later on does not change your past. He received the death penalty for the brutality of the way he killed not because he killed.

I think he gets what he deserves.

I whole heartily agree. 

Carlie Brucia was abducted just a mile from my house here in Sarasota.  As a father of a daughter, I cannot imagine any punishment on this earth that could ever atone for her brutal rape and murder.

I have come to the conclusion that capital punishment does not serve as a deterent to rape, murder and other heinous crimes.  At the same time, I believe that such offenders need to be permanently separated from society.  Throw them in a cell (or a hole in the ground for that matter) and let them live out their natural life contemplating what they have done.  No gymnasiums, cable TV, book deals, etc.  Just four walls and three meals a day.  In the end they will be judged by a higher authority.

Mark            

Quote dontracy - 2005-12-12 2:39 PM Gov Schwarzenegger has denied clemency to Tookie Williams.

Schwarzemegger said, "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless andbrutal killings there can be no redemption."

Huh? Schwarzenegger is a freakin' Catholic politician. He should know that redemption does not require a public apology in the way he is saying it.

I'm really PO'd at the majority of Catholic politicians in the United States. From John Kerry, on the abortion and receiving communion issue, to Schwarzenegger making statements about redemption and, it seems to me, basically ignoring Church teaching on the issue of capital punishment in our time, they seem to completely ingore the faith they claim to believe in.

I wish Schwarzenegger had reflected on Pope John Paul II's words in the encyclical The Gospel of Life. END Quote

This is coming from a recovering Catholic,,,,,,,, But isn't Pope John Paul II the dude that is in charge of a worlwide organization that in the recent past, when they found out that a priest had mollested a child, they just sent him to a different unsuspecting parish?

It's pretty easy to go through the bible and find some scripture you can make fit your scenerio.

This is what I hope for, at this time, that the people who are in charge of ending his life are able to do their civic duty without any ill effects on themselves. That the people opposed to this accept it as this is being done in a legal means according to the law based on what the majority have voted for. I hope there is no illegal violence due to the law being carried out.

I am thankfull to the politicians who do what they feel is the RIGHT thing to do as a publicly elected official regardless of their relegious affiliations.

Well folks the time is nigh.

You can argue the politics of it and you can argue the hypocrisy of the players...but now it's just Williams and the Executioner. The Executioner has no politics, he has no hypocrisy. He offers only finality. One should pray that Williams is ready for his executioner's song. Williams , as all of us will, is standing at the crossroads. Which path has he chosen? Which path have you chosen?

That is like RIGHT ON RICE!!!

Regarding the Holy Wars or Crusades, I think it was the Catholic's obligation to either convert or kill everyone who was non Catholic because that was their "Beleif" wasn't it??

And now we're equating the Catholic church of the Middle Ages with the present day Church?  C'mon.

And how exactly did the issue of church and state come up anyway?  This is entirely a legal issue, however many people feel strongly one way or the other because of their PERSONAL religious beliefs.