Tookie Williams, Alcoholism and Possible Redemption
Stanley Tookie Williams: A Model of Alcoholism, Horrific Behaviors, Sobriety and Possible Redemption
Many recovering addicts do everything they can to redeem themselves. Does this mean they shouldn’t pay the price for committing the ultimate crime?
In 1981 Stanley Tookie Williams was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 murders of four people in two separate incidents. After the usual decades of appeals, he is scheduled for execution December 13, 2005. His unique case was chronicled in a 2004 movie and has provided fodder for weeks of talk-radio debate and bombast.
Tookie, who grew up fatherless but with an apparent caring mother, began sniffing glue at age 13. He later became addicted to PCP, which causes extreme violence in some addicts, and used other drugs. Readers of my books know that the odds of alcoholism in illegal hard drug users are near 100%. In 1972 at age 18 he co-founded one of the world’s most notorious gangs, the Crips. There is little doubt that if he is innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted, he is guilty of numerous others. By his own admission, he was a troublemaker and criminal. When the verdict was read, he threatened the jurors. In prison he was involved in at least eleven serious incidents, including fights, throwing chemicals on guards and planning a violent jailbreak. For his continued troublemaking, he earned six years in solitary confinement beginning in 1988.
And his misbehaviors stopped abruptly after 1993. Why?
A return to civilized behaviors in addicts, particularly in those who have become especially uncivil, requires not only abstinence, but also ego deflation. Prison life is not amenable to opportunities to deflate the ego. Perhaps, solitary provided the necessary time to reflect. Maybe he read a few good books. He might have even read the comment in Alcoholics Anonymous by a nine-time inmate who said, “I wish everyone could be in A.A., and if everyone were, there would be no need for jails,”or another who said, “I served twelve years in prison, never suspecting that without alcohol, I would not have been in prison at all.”Tookie Williams could not have attended a 12-Step program while in solitary. He did, however, walk out an obviously changed man.
There are many arguments both for and against his guilt. Among them, supporters claim he had an unfair trial because there were no blacks on the jury”which is untrue. They point out that prosecutor Robert Martin described Tookie, shackled in the defendant’s box, as a “Bengal tiger in captivity in a zoo.”Sorry, but that is an excellent and all-too-correct description of many addicts, especially those who smoke PCP, regardless of race. While detractors argue there is no question of his guilt, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in suggesting that the Governor consider clemency, explained that the evidence supporting conviction was comprised of circumstantial evidence and witnesses had “less-than-clean backgrounds and incentives to lie in order to obtain leniency from the state in either charging or sentencing”in their cases. According to http://www.tookie.com/tookie_fact_sheet_10.18.05.pdf, one of the witnesses, a longtime felon placed in a nearby cell, testified that Tookie confessed to the crime after a police murder file on Tookie’s case was left overnight with the informant. After facing a death sentence for rape, murder and mutilation, the informant was given a lesser sentence. On the other hand, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s response to Tookie’s petition for clemency is compelling (http://da.co.la.ca.us/pdf/swilliams.pdf), which includes mention of the fact that Williams seems to have known too many details about the crimes before they became public knowledge. And, of course he may have committed the murders: he was high on PCP at the time the crime was committed.
While never admitting guilt, with the help of journalist Barbara Cottman Becnel, Tookie Williams began a crusade against gangs, violence and drugs. He wrote nine books warning high-risk youth of the dangers of gangs. He apologized for founding the Crips and urged adolescents to shun gang life. If, as some talking heads suggest, he was doing this only to avoid execution, why didn’t he begin his crusade immediately after sentencing instead of threatening the jurors and continuing to create trouble among fellow inmates and prison guards for over a decade? Why did he wait until 1993 to become someone who virtually everyone agrees has since been a model prisoner?
On the other hand, he steadfastly refuses to admit guilt for the murders, claiming he cannot do so for a crime he did not commit. He’s between a rock and hard place: admitting guilt and apologizing to the victims, while an act of redemption, may reduce the odds of a court stepping in at the last moment to block the execution, or of clemency. All the same, he could consent to a debriefing, which would assist law enforcers in arrests by giving information on the Crips and how inmates get money and traffic in drugs. While claiming he has no information of value to offer, he says it would violate his “code of honor”to be debriefed”which he considers a euphemism for “snitching.”Yet, a code of honor is nothing more than a code of silence, which protects those who have committed criminal and unethical transgressions against others. Breaking the code helps other addicts experience consequences, thereby increasing the odds of sobriety in felons, as well as, perhaps, prison guards who assist felons acquire pruno (alcohol made from prunes in prison) and other drugs.
There are 647 condemned prisoners in California. If becoming a model prisoner is a way to turn over a conviction, get a retrial or be granted clemency, why doesn’t every convict write peace-affirming books or speak out against violence? The fact that Williams was a monster for a number of years while in prison indicates only that his drug-addled brain had not yet healed. Even if defective on some counts, he is clearly making an attempt at redemption and deserves a measure of commendation. The conundrum is this: offering clemency for a cold-blooded murderer is more than offset by the lack of mercy shown victims. However, redemption should be a life-long pursuit and dead felons cannot continue their work towards redemption, particularly valuable when that work may reduce the number of future victims. Although I wouldn’t want to be in Governor Schwarzenegger’s shoes at the hearing, clemency”life in prison without the possibility of parole”should be considered.