no stay of execution

"I am not the kind of person to sit around and worry about being executed...I have faith and if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way."

Stanley Williams' words last month regarding the appeal process for his sentence of death. But faith isn't enough these days, (and I doubt it ever was [see 'the Holocaust', 'Manifest Destiny', or Hispanola circa 1492 for details]) as Williams' final chance for appeal failed today. The interesting thing though is why California Governor Arnold Schwartzeneger denied Williams' appeal. According to Reuters,

'The governor, weakened by a loss on all his initiatives in a special election he called last month, would have risked alienating his Republican party if he granted clemency.'

Stanley Williams, the founder of the street gang the Crips, has been charged with the murders of four people in 1979, and to this day has maintained his innocence. During his time in prison, he has written at length against violence, actively worked to turn children from gangs, street violence, and drugs, and has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize. This however does not count as reform, and the politics cry for blood.

We have executed 1000 people in the US since the mid-seventies, and Stanley Williams will be 1001. Violence is violence, especially when it is goverment sanctioned. This is our solution as a country.