Court rejects California gang founder's appeal

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court has rejected a late appeal to reopen the case of condemned Crips gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams, leaving his fate in the hands of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Williams, 51, is slated to be executed at 12.01am (9.01pm NZDT) today for murdering four people in two 1979 robberies around Los Angeles. His supporters had hoped the anti-gang books for children he wrote in prison would help him win clemency from Schwarzenegger, but they now appear dispirited that the celebrity governor has waited until the last day to announce his decision.

Pondering their fifth habeas corpus petition on the case over the past quarter century, the state Supreme Court on Sunday night rejected his lawyers' effort filed a day before to reopen the case.

"Claims 'One' through 'Nine' are denied on the merits," the court said. "In addition, each claim also is barred as untimely and successive."

In recent weeks, Williams' supporters had argued he was a life worth sparing because his message inspires inner-city youth. The inmate was subject of a film starring Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx.

"I see that as cruel," Barbara Becnel, who edited Williams' anti-gang books, told a news conference on Sunday when asked about the delayed word from Schwarzenegger.

Prosecutors also expect last-minute appeals to other courts before the scheduled execution by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison.

In the Supreme Court petition, attorney Verna Wefald wrote: "Mr. Williams has maintained his innocence since the day he was arrested.

"Given that the state's case rests on the testimony of criminal informants who had an incentive to lie, not only to obtain benefits, but to hide the truth of their involvement in these crimes, it is imperative that discovery be granted at this critical stage of Mr Williams' case."

In an interview with Reuters last week, Ronald George, the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, said there was "something wrong" with a system in which judges must routinely ponder last-minute death row legal filings after two decades of decisions.

Many death penalty experts say the claim of innocence complicates an effort to win clemency on redemptive grounds. Yet Williams has openly spoken of a brutal gang past for which he apologises.

Death penalty opponents were expected to gather at San Quentin on the bay north of San Francisco.

Los Angeles civic and community leaders, worried that Williams' execution could spark rioting, have urged the public to remain calm whatever the governor decides.

- REUTERS