San Francisco – The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to halt the scheduled execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams, the Crips gang founder who became an anti-gang activist while in prison.
In a last-ditch legal move, defense attorneys petitioned the high court this month, alleging shoddy forensic testing and other errors may have wrongly sent Williams to San Quentin State Prison, where he is scheduled to die by injection Dec. 13.
The defense derided as “junk science” ballistics evidence showing that a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a 1979 motel robbery. The attorneys asked the court to allow re- examination of the evidence.
Prosecutors argued there was no good reason to reopen Williams’ case. Allegations about the shotgun evidence were based not on fact but on “innuendo, supposition and the patent bias of (Williams’) purported expert,” prosecutors said.
The high court voted 4-2 without comment to deny the inmate’s petition.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger or a federal court still could intervene to spare the 51-year-old Williams.
Williams, condemned in 1981, has maintained his innocence. Among his claims is that fabricated testimony sent him to death row.
He also says prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors from his case.
The California Supreme Court, federal trial and appeals courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court have already ruled against him in earlier appeals.
