House of Eratosthenes

There are many, many people running around, just as free as you and me, even able to cast votes that are as important as the votes you and I cast, who will look upon the graphic below with a mixture of dread and disgust. They are going to cite this as evidence that the death penalty has gotten way out of hand, and people like me are using it to satisfy some kind of sick blood-lust. This, in turn, those people say, amounts to a violation of the Eighth Amendment and its prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Accepting their premise about my blood-lust, I would agree with them about the Eighth Amendment. Although that premise is deeply flawed, and therefore the conclusion about the Eighth Amendment is also deeply flawed, we do owe a substantial debt to those people.

We owe them the debt because they illustrate starkly for the rest of us, how incredibly misguided our society’s resistance to capital punishment really is. We have the death penalty so that when the law proves a substantial danger exists to the innocent among us, when a convicted murderer is allowed to keep living, we can make an exceptionally serious decision about who is to live and who is to die. One of the most contagious arguments against the death penalty, is the arbitrary proposition that government should be encumbered from having that right. This axiom thus presumes that government, interacting with nature, should have limits placed upon what kind of nature it can recognize. Nature, after all, can sprawl into the territory of harshness — laboring under no uncumberences whatsoever as it does so. Nature has perverts, psychos, weirdos, and sickos. It is populated with killer whales that swallow cute sea otters whole, frogs that kill flies on a whim, mantises that eat the heads of their mates during the coupling, and cats that sadistically toy around with bloody, eviscerated, quivering mice.

Anti-death-penalty people, by and large, are people who like to forget that.

The pro-Tookie brigade indignantly demands to know who, exactly, would be placed in physical danger from Tookie Williams, had his death sentenced been commuted to life in prison. In asking this, not only do they demonstrate ignorance about Tookie Williams’ personal history, but they also miss the point. Williams’ plea for clemency was pumped chock-full of bullshit from the get-go. His defenders dictated to the rest of us that we were to presume Williams’ books swayed would-be gang members from lives of crime. There is little evidence to indicate this, and what evidence there is, is suggestive only; it would be extremely difficult to digest and translate into anything compelling. The lie was spread around that Tookie’s prosecutors rejected black jurors from his jury. Another lie was spread that he was “convicted by an all-white jury,” something that has been proven to be untrue.

Governor Schwarzenegger has performed a fairly comprehensive review of the claim that Tookie has “found redemption” behind bars, and found it to be, at best, a difficult assertion to maintain. Quoting from the clemency decision read just a few minutes ago on KFBK by Tom Sullivan:

Williams’ claim of redemption triggers an inquiry into his atonement for all his transgressions. Williams protests that he has no reason to apologize for these murders because he did not commit them. But he is guilty and a close look at Williams’ post-arrest and post-conviction conduct tells a story that is different from redemption.

After Williams was arrested for these crimes, and while he was awaiting trial, he conspired to escape from custody by blowing up a jail transportation bus and killing the deputies guarding the bus. There are detailed escape plans in Williams’ own handwriting. Williams never executed this plan, but his co-conspirator implicated Williams in the scheme. The fact that Williams conspired to murder several others to effectuate his escape from jail while awaiting his murder trial is consistent with guilt, not innocence. And the timing of the motel murders — less than two weeks after the murder of Albert Owens — shows a callous disregard for human life.

Williams has written books that instruct readers to avoid the gang lifestyle and to stay out of prison…The dedication of Williams’ book “Life in Prison” casts significant doubt on his personal redemption. This book was published in 1998, several years after Williams’ claimed redemptive experience. Specifically, the book is dedicated to “Nelson Mandela, Angela Davis, Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt, Ramona Africa, John Africa, Leonard Peltier, Dhoruba Al-Mujahid, George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the countelss other men, women, and youths who have to endure the hellish oppression of living behind bars.” The mix of individuals on this list is curious. Most have violent pasts and some have been convicted of committing heinous murders, including the killing of law enforcement. But the inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems.

Why does Governor Schwarzenegger say such a thing? It’s documented in a footnote within his decision, although this wouldn’t be a good fit for radio, so it’s understandable Tom Sullivan didn’t read it. But in my judgment, it fits in “great” on a blog page, although it’s certainly not the kind of thing that will add a pick-up to your day:

George Jackson was a militant activist and prison inmate who founded the violent Black Guerilla Family prison gang. Jackson was charged with the murder of a San Quentin correctional officer. In 1970, when Jackson was out to court in Marin County on the murder case, his brother stormed the courtroom with a machine gun, and along with Jackson and two other inmates, took a judge, the prosecutor and three others hostage in an escape attempt. Shooting broke out. The prosecutor was paralyzed from a police bullet, and the judge was killed by a close-range blast to his head when thet shotgun taped to his throat was fired by one of Jackson’s accomplices. Jackson’s brother was also killed. Then, three days before trial was to begin in the correctional officer murder case, Jackson was gunned down in the upper yard at San Quentin Prison in another foiled escape attempt on a day of unparalleled violence in the prison that left three officers and three inmates dead in an earlier riot that reports indicate also involved Jackson.

My take on it? This is a culture of violence. It goes beyond even a culture of anarchy — anarchy would mean, opposing law and order in our society whether that law and order is on your side, or not. This is a culture of selective anarchy, of cherry-picking what rules to follow and when. A law that compels Tookie Williams to die, is to be opposed; but if the law came up with some bullshit excuse to let him languish, enjoying days and years that his victims cannot enjoy, well then that law would have been peachy-keen. And a law that required his release? Even better.

It’s the Culture of Clinton. Say what you have to say to get-away-with-it. Just bullshit your way out of trouble when you have to.

That’s what this was all about. Just sending messages to people thinking about killing other people. Send a message that they could die for doing so? Or send a message that, with the right bunch of Hollywood celebrities and P.R. men, they can bullshit their way out of trouble?

This is why Governor Schwarzenegger’s decision should cause all intelligent people living in this state, and beyond, to “Have A Nice Day.” That doesn’t mean to smile or feel good, necessarily, because after all this is a grave, serious issue. But the lives of the weakest and most innocent among us are on the line, throughout 12:01 a.m. tomorrow and beyond. The right decision was made, this time, so that they are now a little bit safer.

To the extent you can feel “happiness” about an issue like this, involving the components of nature that are the very harshest in the human ecosystem, it certainly is justification for feeling that. And in order to get “happy,” you don’t have to be frothing at the mouth, you don’t have to have a facial tic, you don’t even have to be the kind of guy who yells at his television set during a football game. All you have to do, is to regard the collective ability of our innocent people to live out their lives, as an important thing.

Well, pardon me for saying so, but I do. I think those peoples’ lives are more important than Mr. Williams’ life — Williams has created a situation where we cannot respect their lives, and his, at the same time. They are more important than he is, and they should win. They did. I’m “happy.”

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One Less PsychoMonday, December 12th, 2005

One Less Psycho
Monday, December 12th, 2005