What was tookie williams accused of

The guard opens a small flap in the side. Williams is ordered to stick his hands through the flap behind his back and is cuffed. Only then does the guard open the door to the cage and let me enter, and only when the door is firmly shut does he unlock the cuffs. Williams requests a pencil for me to take notes - the one that arrives is less than 2 inches long and almost impossibly blunt.

I scribble on paper napkins. Williams is releasing his biography in a further bid to dissuade the young from entering the gangster life. Rap stars and other musicians often use the fact they have been in prison as a way of boosting their credibility. This is a terrible place to be. Williams was 17 when he founded the Crips with his friend, Raymond Washington.

At first the gang was intended to provide its members with protection against others, but as the numbers rapidly grew it became a force and criminal enterprise in its own right. Today there are , gang members in the Los Angeles area, split between the Crips and their rivals, the Bloods. At least 5, lives have been lost. When I was beating people I would make sure they knew it was Tookie who was hitting them. Garrett, who died in , was given probation or light sentences for a series of post crimes, including two shootings, and "knew that he could continue to call in favors for the rest of his criminal career," Williams' lawyers said.

Coward, who was not prosecuted for his role in the 7-Eleven murder, continued his life of crime and is now in a Canadian prison on a manslaughter conviction for beating a man to death during a robbery, Williams' lawyers said. They also said Los Angeles prosecutors had arranged for the appointment of a lawyer for Coleman who would assure his testimony against Williams -- a claim disputed by prosecutors, who said the lawyer was independent and well respected. Williams and his backers also say the trial was infused with racism.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Martin removed three African Americans from the jury, but the racial composition of the jury remains in dispute -- in particular, the race of an apparently dark-skinned juror of Filipino descent who also might have been black.

Nine judges on the Ninth U. Circuit Court of Appeals -- four short of the necessary majority -- said in February that Williams should get a new hearing on the juror removals. Williams' lawyers also accused Martin of racism for telling jurors, in his closing argument, that seeing Williams in the courtroom was like seeing a "Bengal tiger in captivity in the zoo.

The federal appeals court said both points were legally irrelevant to the fairness of Williams' trial. In the end, Williams and his lawyers were unable to find a way to raise doubts about his guilt before the courts, which instead focused on such legal issues as jury selection, suppression of evidence and the competence of the defense lawyer.

Now that clemency is his last hope, Williams' "claim of innocence may be hurting him" by making it impossible for him to express remorse for the four murders, said UC Berkeley Law Professor Franklin Zimring, an expert on clemency. If that costs him his life, so be it, Williams says. He told The Chronicle in an interview Thursday, "It is absurd for a person to apologize for something he didn't do. I will not lower my integrity. Williams wed his wife Bonnie in Williams was also involved with the Crips and led a life of crime; he was eventually sentenced to sixteen years in prison for second-degree murder.

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Foreman, C. Previous Previous post: William B. He was nominated four years in a row for the Nobel Peace Prize, beginning in He was executed despite calls for clemency by anti-death penalty advocates and a campaign based on his redemption that was spearheaded by Becnel. According to court documents, Becnel first got in touch with Williams in the fall of , when she was writing a book about the history of the Crips and Bloods youth gangs.

During a subsequent interview, Williams asked Becnel to help him steer children away from gangs.