[lurker]

Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the black founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles, was convicted in the 1979 murders of a convenience store clerk and is scheduled for execution just after midnight.

He claims that he's reformed and I believe he is reformed because 20+ years of incarceration along with NOT being surrounded by his homies does change a man's direction in life.

That's where my problem with 'why' our system of Capital/Capitol punishment is failing. We always execute the wrong person due to the changes the murderers all go through in living. The additional problem is that their peers on the outside also change so deterrence is less effective. Timely executions might be more effective because the murderer hasn't 'changed' and neither has their peers; to whom we are trying to send the deterrence message.

In the case of the "Crips" gang and their 35 years of existance, I believe they wouldn't be what they are today if Tookie would have been Taken from this earth a long long time ago.