quite sad to read about the execution of tookie william last night. the common view by commentators seems to be that california’s governor, arnold schwarzenegger, did not grant clemency because of not wanting to his republican clientel to appear soft on crime — and in particular wanted to boost his image after having lost several referendums and elections in the last months.

mr william has been in prison for such a long time that in other, civilized, countries he’d have served a life sentence already. from what is reported of mr william, he seems to have done a 180° turn-around from his criminal past, has been instrumental in resolving gang wars in as far away places as new york, has been writing books for kids and teenagers in which he delivers a very strong message against joining gangs.

mr schwarzenegger nevertheless decided not to pardon mr william — mainly on the grounds that tookie william never regretted the crimes he’d been sentenced to death for. now, the reason why mr william didn’t apologized for those crimes is that he’s maintained since before his trial that he did not commit those crimes.

so, to get this straight: there is a man sentenced to death, sitting in death row for the most part of his life, has done a very convincing and effective 180° turn-around from his criminal past (has to all intents, facts, and purposes repented) and has always maintained his innocence about the crimes he’s been accused of — denying clemency on the grounds of him having never apologized for the crimes he is alleged to have committed is a rather arrogant and presumptuous position. arrogant and presumptuous because it assumes that that judgement was a correct and just judgement and it fails to acknowledge the history of wrongly assigned sentences and, even worse, death sentences.

in my opinion mr schwarzenegger literally walks over dead bodies to further his own “career” — and certainly is not man enough to grant a pardon to mr william. if you ask me: a rather wimpy terminator…