In an edi­to­r­i­al on October 27, the Los Angeles Times called for an end to the death penal­ty in California. The Times stat­ed that the pun­ish­ment should end not because of the mer­its of indi­vid­ual death row inmates, such as Stanley Williams, sched­uled for exe­cu­tion on December 13, but because of ​“who we are” as a civ­i­lized soci­ety:

EDITORIAL Shut down death rowOctober 27, 2005

STANLEY ​“TOOKIE” WILLIAMS is a charis­mat­ic sym­bol of what’s wrong with the death penal­ty — and of what’s wrong with the debate about the death penal­ty. His sto­ry of sin and redemp­tion pow­er­ful­ly illus­trates the unfair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. But to argue that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is unjust for some defen­dants is to con­cede that it may be accept­able for oth­ers.

The rea­son to oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has to do with who we are, not who death row inmates are. The death penal­ty is inap­pro­pri­ate in all sit­u­a­tions because it is unbe­fit­ting of a civ­i­lized soci­ety. Williams’ case, though poignant, is irrel­e­vant to this argu­ment.

Part of what makes Williams such an effec­tive sym­bol in the debate over cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is his com­pelling sto­ry. If there was a hall of shame for crim­i­nals, Williams would deserve his own wing. Williams found­ed the vio­lent and oppres­sive Crips gang, deal­ers of crack cocaine and death by gun­fire who spread their lethal gospel nation­wide. He was con­vict­ed of four 1979 gun mur­ders, and who knows what oth­er vio­lence he mas­ter­mind­ed as the Crips leader.

By most accounts, how­ev­er, Williams has become a very dif­fer­ent per­son in his near­ly quar­ter-cen­tu­ry in San Quentin. He has writ­ten chil­dren’s books warn­ing against gang life, debunked the thug glam­our of prison, helped bro­ker gang treaties and, absurd­ly, been nom­i­nat­ed for a Nobel Peace Prize by sup­port­ers who roman­ti­cize his reha­bil­i­ta­tion. There is even a TV movie about Williams’ jail­house con­ver­sion.

Williams is a good sym­bol, and good sym­bols are impor­tant to oppo­nents of the death penal­ty. Yet pro­po­nents have their sym­bols too. And argu­ing over sym­bols fails to reach the core of the injus­tice of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.

Which is not to say there aren’t prac­ti­cal argu­ments against the death penal­ty. Putting peo­ple to death is more cost­ly than incar­cer­at­ing them for life, and even then our legal sys­tem is not fool­proof. Mounting evi­dence that inno­cent peo­pl e were on death row led Illinois to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2000, and the pace of exe­cu­tions else­where has slowed because of sim­i­lar con­cerns. Even U.S. Supreme Court jus­tices are voic­ing con­cern about the death penal­ty’s appli­ca­tion.

California, which has exe­cut­ed only 11 peo­ple since 1976, should give up on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment alto­geth­er, like 12 U.S. states and most of what is often referred to as the ​“civ­i­lized world.” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should can­cel Williams’ exe­cu­tion, sched­uled for Dec. 13, and Williams should spend the rest of his days in jail. So should every­one else on death row — even those who haven’t had their lives turned into a TV movie.
(Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27, 2005). See Editorials.

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