Dec 12, 2005 10:27 pm US/Mountain
Coloradans Protest 'Tookie' Williams Execution
by Rick Sallinger
DENVER (CBS4) ―
The fight to spare death row inmate Stanley 'Tookie' Williams' life has reached from California all the way to Colorado.
Anti-death penalty protestors held a rally at the state capitol Monday afternoon in hopes that Williams' life would be spared.
The rally was organized after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Williams, co-founder of the notorious Crips street gang.
Williams was given the death penalty after being convicted of murdering four people during two 1979 holdups.
The demonstration at the capitol was small, but the speakers spoke strongly about Schwarzenegger's decision.
"It's not ironic that the 'Terminator' would decide to take a man's life because the 'Terminator'..hey I guess we've already seen he has no life. He's a Hollywood character," said Earl Armstrong, a Denver community activist.
Protestors held a vigil and honored Williams as a man who turned his life around behind bars. Williams changed his point of view in prison and tried to convince people that gangs were not the way.
Governor Bill Owens said if he was in Schwarzenegger's position, he would examine the case very carefully.
"I'd look at the court record, I'd look at the appeals and I'd try and decide whether or not there was anything in the evidence or in the court process that led me to believe that justice had been done," Owens said.
At the rally, more than praise for Williams, there was condemnation for a system that would put him to death.
"Residing like God over life and death of a man....he's not fit to lick the boots off," Ward Churchill told the crowd of protestors. Churchill is the CU professor who was criticized for comments he made about the victims of September 11.
Williams' lawyers filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for clemency. If they do not grant clemency, Williams will be executed at 12:01 a.m. PST.
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