Goodbye Tookie

Last week Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed. Tookie was the founder of the notorious Crips, the gang that battled the Bloods for supremacy in L.A. Vigils held by celebrities calling for clemency by Governor Schwarzenegger fell on deaf ears.

Tookie's execution raises some interesting questions.

What's the point of the eventual sentence in a criminal case - whether it is jail or the death penalty.

Is it punishment? Rehabilitation? Protection of society? General deterrence?

In a death penalty case, clearly it has to be punishment of the individual. After all, once they are dead, there's really not too much else you could do with them.

However, it takes a number of years between the time the death sentence is passed and it is actually carried out. For Tookie, that was over 24 years he spent on death row. In that time, there were numerous appeals. Over that time, he wrote children's books condemning the very institution, gangs, that he helped propel to notoriety, was nominated for the Nobel Prize in peace and literature. Those opposed to the death penalty say that clearly, Tookie has been reformed, and should be spared the death penalty. Afterall, that is what prisons do - they reform people.

But, as some have pointed out, this entire time, Tookie has maintained his innocence. How could you have been redeemed if he didn't commit the crime, never apologized to his victims, or accept responsibility for what he did, as Larry Elder said.

Is there a possibility that Tookie is innocent? Sure. As the founder and leader of such a huge gang, an arrest and conviction of Tookie's stature would've sent out a message to the rest of the gangs in L.A. And, L.A. cops are not exactly known as the cleanest ones around.

End of the day, Tookie was being punished for the crimes he committed. Had he been sentenced to prison, then an argument could be made that prison in its best case scenario is a place to rehabilitate people. Afterall, maybe had Tookie faced up to the mistakes he made, you could say he redeemed himself.