Now...About Tookie...
This is from an e-mail from the Citizens United Against the Death Penalty. I agree with all of it. You can find the archive of the list mailing here:
And now... about Tookie. Everybody wants to talk about Tookie. I've had radio producers call me for advice on guests for shows about Tookie, and to ask me to be available when a decision is made. I've had political columnists ask me for details on Tookie, and several of you have asked me to post information about the case. To be clear, it has always been the policy of CUADP NOT to focus on any one case unless there was some larger ramification. After all, whose life is more valuable than another’s - even among convicted murderers - guilty or not? And what does all of the hubbub about Tookie say about the idea of mercy, aka executive clemency? Of course I want Tookie to get clemency, if not a new and more fair trial, and I have written my letters, made my phone calls, and everyone receiving a thank you note for a recent donation to CUADP or who ordered AbolitionWear recently has also received the DPF postcards on the *three* pending California extermination dates. But I must confess that my biggest fear about the possibility that Tookie receives clemency is this: Will it set the bar for clemency consideration so high that no others can even hope to be considered? Must you be an "author" or a "Nobel" contender, or have a movie made about you? Must you be in a position (and use it!) to influence people for good as a result of your past evils? What about the next guy on California's death watch - a 70+ year-old blind diabetic confined to a wheelchair? What about a guy like Shawn Paul Humphries, killed last week in South Carolina for what most similar crimes result in a jail term *with* the possibility of parole? Once again, what hits home in Tookie's case and so many others is the simple fact that the vast majority of murderers get the "lesser" punishment of life without parole.
Its an unequal system in another way. If you manage to politicize your case or somehow otherwise become a celebrity and build a following, you get a massive outpouring of support when your time comes up. If you are just another shnook without a hook, you get nothing except the bare minimum. But at least there is that - the bare minimum. I urge everyone who has been attracted to this movement because of a famous case like that of Mumia or Tookie to look at the bigger issue and look at the rest of the cases. Send an e-mail to tollbells-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
to get a (usually) weekly update of pending exterminations, and take action also at www.NCADP.org
, where links are always posted on the front page to action alerts on *every* pending extermination in the US. We must speak up *every* time the state kills in our names, not just when there is a band wagon to jump on.
This does not mean that we don't want Tookie to get clemency. This only means that we want every case taken seriously - not just the celebrity ones. And I am guilty of giving more time to this case - partly because of the celebrity nature, but partly because it is in California and it hits closer to home.
But Tookie is not the only person that is scheduled to be killed over the next two two months. There are two others:
The lives of these two are just as important as the life of Tookie Williams. It does not matter if a movie was made about them. It does not matter if they wrote children’s books. It does not matter if the were nominated for a Nobel Prize.
What matters is that they are people - real live human beings. And the state wants to kill them. We can no longer support state sanctioned homicide - for anyone.
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