Re: [Marxism] Re: Tookie Williams, prisoner of conscience, was executed for pleading not guilty and

["Michael Hoover" <hooverm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> phantasmagorias@xxxxxxxxx 12/15/05 9:10 AM >>>
The whole bloody circus revolved around the
undefinable notion of "redemption," and whether the
wise Governor judged Tookie to have achieved it. Thus
Williams' stated (and implied!) opinions and feelings
comprised key evidence.  And thus were Tookie's hopes
to remain alive damaged (officially!) by his mention
in the dedication of one of his books of such unsavory
figures as Mumia, Malcolm, Peltier, and George
Jackson. For the Governor, radicalism equals
non-redemption equals deserves to die. First Amendment
indeed.
Michael D.

--- Fred Feldman <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Making the fact that someone says they are not
> guilty, while the jury
> thought otherwise, into the central argument for
> executing them --
> Schwarzenegger clearly centers his decision on the
> absence of a
> confession of guilt -- is a clear violation, to put
> it very delicately
> indeed, of the first amendment guaranteeing freedom
> from penalties on
> speech, and the fourteenth amendment extending this
> provision to the
> states and guaranteeing equal protection of the
> laws.
> Williams refused to bow to the power of the state. 
> He became not just a
> victim, but a martyr.  And a reminder of what the 
> Black population
> above all, but all of us exploited, oppressed, and
> dissident face at the
> hand of this ruling class.
> Fred Feldman
<<<<<>>>>>

race and class, other factors (generally related to these two): 
community/media reaction to murder committed & identity of 
victim, prosecution decision to charge arrested suspect with 
capital crime & to seek death penalty or allow defendent to 
plea-bargain for life, such decision itself depends on chance: 
ambition/inclination of local prosecutor, legal/political
pressures, competence/incompetence of court-appointed 
defense attorney...

of course, deciding who will die among those convicted of 
murder isn't issue in states that no longer retain death penalty,
In those that do, other vagaries exist after decision to seek 
death penalty is made: trial presided over by hanging judge or 
judge whose rulings go one way/other depending upon on who 
victim's/defendant's family is, who is prosecuting/defending case,
and upon conviction, juries in some counties consistently impose 
death, those in others counties rarely do...

consider texas, kingpin of capital punishment, in 30 years since 
u.s. supreme court upheld death penalty, about 20% of counties
with trials in which death penalty could have been imposed have 
put no one on death row, on other hand, harris county (houston) 
alone accounts for over 25% of texas death row inmates...

over time, some death row inmates have politicized their cases,
and well they should have, they understood/came to understand
political economy of injustice, that, in itself, doesn't make any of
them 'good guys' per se, but as tocqueville wrote (about 
slavemasters), "the same man who is full of humanity toward his 
fellow creatures when they are at the same time his equals becomes 
insensible to their affliction as soon as that equality ceases"...

day when people are no longer condemned to death on basis of race &
class will be day when no one is condemned to death at all...  mh

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