They Don't Call Him "The Terminator" Just Because He's a Heartless Killing Machine From the Future

So, Gov. Arnold "Jingle All the Way" Schwartzenegger has rejected the appeal for clemency of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the notorious Crips gang. Williams is set to die in...well, in a little over 2.5 hours from now in connection with the murders of a family of motel owners the Yang Family and a convenience store clerk in Whittier. Tookie...we hardly knew ye...

Man, that's got to be a weird feeling, huh? Knowing the exact moment of your death like that. Looking up at a clock and thinking, "Well, a little over 2 hours to go." I think I'd probably obsess over what activities I theoretically could engage in with my remaining time on this planet. "Well, it's enough time to watch Revenge of the Sith, but I wouldn't quite get to the very end of King Kong...And let's totally forget about Lawrence of Arabia."

This cruelty is just one of many, many reasons I oppose the death penalty in all cases. The Constitution does, after all, forbid "cruel and unusual punishment." It doesn't specify - cruel and unusual physical punishment, which is generally how we interpret the law. Like you can't torture a criminal because it's cruel. Now, an insurgent...Fucking go for it, man! Have a blast! Torture him to your heart's content.

But just think about it...Isn't telling someone you're going to kill them at midnight, and then feeding them and bringing them a priest to talk to...Isn't that cruel? In fact, I'd say it's both cruel and unusual. Imagine if someone came into the room you're sitting in right now and told you, "In four weeks, I'm going to inject you with poisons until you first become paralyzed, and then die," wouldn't that be cruel? Wouldn't you be an emotional and physical wreck for those next four weeks? Wouldn't it just be better to sneak up on the prisoner and kill them when they're not paying attention.

I think we should start doing the death penalty this way. You convict the guy, and sentence him to death, but then say..."We're not going to tell you how or when you're going to die. Maybe you'll live five years...Maybe five minutes...You'll just have to find out." It sounds worse, but I'd say it would be a lot better. You'd just be in the prison laundry one day, folding up all the orange drawstring prison-issue pants, and the next minute...POW...a baseball bat to the dome and you're out for the count.

It's just a comically hypothetical scenario, though...I don't ever think it's right for 12 schmucks on a jury and one more schmuck in a robe to decide if someone lives or dies. That's just not a decision I want to leave in the hands of my fellow citizens. Because, let's face it, people are stupid and they make decisions based on all kinds of odd, selfish, personal desires and perceptions that have nothing to do with abstracts like Truth, Justice or Fairness.

Even the Gropinator. Is there any doubt this was primarily a political decision? Schwartzy feared right-wing and Republican backlash for saving Tookie's life. He's probably spent all this time trying to decide whether it would be worth it to save Williams - he would gain a lot of anti-death penalty fans on the left-wing, but would that make up for all the kill-crazy right wing nutjobs who want nothing more than to see their elected representitives murdering black men? I guess the final decision was, "no."

I was arguing to my Grandmother just last night that Ah-nold was going to intervene and save Tookie from the death penalty. I figured, after making him wait all this time for a decision, it would just be needlessly cruel to execute him after all. I mean, if you're just going to uphold the decision that had already been made, why make a big show out of it? Now, he just seems like a coward, like someone who knows deep down that Tookie shouldn't die by lethal injection tonight but doesn't have the cojones to do the right thing in the face of opposition.

And, let's face it, it is rather mean-spirited to give someone hope like that, only to dash them and kill him anyway. I thought such an activity would be beneath even our Governor, a man who thinks women's asses were put on this earth for him to pinch and that mocking deaf weight-lifters with whom you're in competition is the height of sophistication and charm. But, alas, i was wrong.

And let me just say...I don't think anything that Tookie has done since his conviction makes him especially worthy of clemency. The guy wasn't just a murderer...He was a founding member of the Crips, one of the most murderous and vile organizations in the history of Los Angeles. You have to do much more than write a couple of uplifting children's books and befriend some celebrities to make up for crimes like that.

So I'm not saying Tookie in particular deserved to be saved, and I actually think celebrities like Snoop Dogg grandstanding on his behalf does more harm than good. Why isn't Snoop Dogg out there protesting every time a black man is sentenced to die? Why is he only doing this when it's a black man who's kind of famous, and associated with a street gang that Snoop likes to romanticize? That's actually hurting his cause, making it seem like he's just looking out for a friend rather than expressing moral outrage at an unjust law.

I'm just saying Tookie, like everyone else on Death Row, shouldn't have to die to make people feel better about themselves. Murdering criminals who have been captured and jailed and no longer pose any risk to society doesn't make you "tough on crime." It just makes you a murderer.