Stanley Tookie Williams executed
Crips gang co-founder put to death for 4 murders
SAN QUENTIN, California (CNN) -- Stanley Tookie Williams -- the co-founder of the violent Crips street gang who became an anti-gang crusader while on death row -- died by lethal injection early Tuesday for the 1979 killings of four people in two Los Angles robberies.
Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the unofficial time of death was 12:35 a.m. (3:35 a.m. ET).
Williams, 51, while acknowledging he had a violent past, had maintained he was innocent in the slayings.
It marked the second execution in California this year, and just the 12th since the death penalty was reinstated in the 1970s.
Williams' case set off intense debates over the death penalty and redemption, with celebrities, activists and anti-death penalty advocates saying his initiatives and anti-gang message from behind bars had proven his life was worth saving. He had even been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature by an array of college professors, a Swiss lawmaker and others.
Seventeen reporters witnessed the execution and gave their accounts afterward.
The process of inserting the IVs to administer the lethal chemicals took about 20 minutes, with staff having particular difficulty getting a needle into Williams' left arm.
Crystal Carreon of the Sacramento Bee newspaper said Williams was restless during the preparations -- a sentiment echoed by San Quentin State Prison Warden Steven Ornoski.
"He did seemed frustrated that it didn't go as quickly as he thought it might," Ornoski.
A crowd of demonstrators began gathering outside the gates of the prison early Monday evening, with celebrities, activists and anti-death-penalty advocates pleading for Williams' life to be spared.
"I am saddened that we are continuing to demean human life by pretending that we are God and making determinations to kill other individuals for what it is claimed they have done," former "M*A*S*H" star and death penalty opponent Mike Farrell told CNN.
The execution process began at 12:01 a.m. (3:01 a.m. ET) in the execution chamber at San Quentin -- 34 minutes later, prison officials confirmed Williams had died.
The announcement of Williams' death was punctuated in the witness gallery by three of his invited supporters, who shouted in unison, "The state of Californian just killed an innocent man," as they exited.
Minutes earlier in the gallery, reporters said at least one of the three had given Williams a raised fist salute.
The execution went ahead as scheduled after the U.S. Supreme Court late Monday rejected a last-ditch appeal.
The high court's ruling followed California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to deny clemency for Williams.
"Based on the cumulative weight of the evidence, there is no reason to second-guess the jury's decision of guilt or raise significant doubts or serious reservations about Williams' convictions and death sentence," Schwarzenegger said in a five-page statement explaining his decision.
Before Williams went to the execution chamber, the stepmother of one of the men Williams was convicted of killing said she felt "justice is going to be done tonight."
"I had faith that when Governor Arnold looked at the facts of the case that he was going to decide not to do clemency," said Lora Owens, whose stepson, Albert Owens, was shot to death in a convenience store holdup. "I don't like it being said it's a political decision. It was an evidence decision."
Williams had maintained his innocence since his arrest and conviction in the brutal 1979 slayings. He had denounced gang violence and written children's books with an anti-gang message, donating the proceeds to anti-gang community groups.
As Williams was being moved to a holding cell next to the death chamber Monday evening, his lead attorney, John Harris, had said the convict was "at peace."
His lawyers late Monday filed another request for clemency from Schwarzenegger, citing the statements of three new witnesses Harris said could provide exculpatory evidence. That request was also denied.
Protesters for and against the death penalty gathered outside the gates of San Quentin early Monday evening.
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who visited with Williams, said Schwarzenegger decided "to choose revenge over redemption and to use Tookie Williams as a trophy in the flawed system."
"To kill him is a way of making politicians look tough," Jackson said. "It does not make it right. It does not make any of us safer. It does not make any of us more secure."
And Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and a prominent death penalty opponent, compared the death penalty to "gang justice."
"Gang justice is, if you kill a member of our gang, we kill you -- and don't tell me anything about how you changed your life or what you're going to do," she said. "You kill, and we kill you. And that's what the United States of America is doing with this."
But Schwarzenegger questioned the sincerity of Williams' conversion to nonviolence.
"Is Williams' redemption complete and sincere, or is it just a hollow promise?" Schwarzenegger wrote. "Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption."
He added: "In this case, the one thing that would be the clearest indication of complete remorse and full redemption is the one thing Williams will not do."
Williams was sentenced to death in 1981 in the killing of Owens, a 26-year-old Los Angeles convenience store clerk, in February 1979. The clerk was shot twice in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun while face-down on the floor.
Less than two weeks later, jurors concluded, Williams killed an immigrant Chinese couple and their 41-year-old daughter while stealing less than $100 in cash from their motel. Part of the daughter's head was blown off in the shooting.
Robert Martin, one of the prosecutors who sent Williams to prison, said the courts "have scrutinized this from every angle and they've found that the evidence is rock solid." He questioned whether there was any moral equivalence "between co-authoring some children's books and the senseless murder of four people in cold blood."
"The books will live on," Martin told CNN. "We have many authors who have died, and their books are still in print. And if they have any good effect, that can continue. So I don't believe that that is a conclusive argument."
Williams' lawyers went to the Supreme Court after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an affidavit that suggested the one-time gang leader was framed for the four killings.
Gordon Bradbury von Ellerman, a jail trusty who had been held with Williams in the Los Angeles County Jail from 1979 to 1980, stated he was the cellmate of another trusty, identified as George "Roger" Oglesby. Von Ellerman states that Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel provided Oglesby with documents to aid him in testifying against Williams in return for reduced or dropped charges.
"I was personally aware that Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel would often provide information to these inmates so that they could help frame defendants for crimes," he said in the statement.
The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit rejected that petition Monday afternoon, arguing that Williams and his lawyers failed to present enough evidence of innocence to block the execution.
Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of the Crips street gangs, was executed by lethal injection in the State of California just after midnight local time Tuesday at the San Quentin State Prison after spending 24 years on death row. He was 51 years old.

Williams said no final words before his execution. It took two nurses 12 minutes to insert catheters into each of his arms, one nurse and one catheter per arm. The lethal doses were injected at 12:20 am, and Williams was pronounced dead at 12:35. 

Hopes for clemency were dashed Monday when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to commute Williams's sentence to life imprisonment.  Last minute appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court were also denied.

Williams was convicted in 1981 of the murder of Albert Owens during the robbery of a 7-Eleven convenience store, as well as the murders of motel owners Tsai-Shai and Yen-I Yang, and their daughter Yee Chen Lin in 1979. 

Following his conviction, Williams became an outspoken anti-gang activist and was four times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. His anti-gang message began in 1993. He co-authored with Barbara Becnel an elementary school book series called "Tookie Speaks Out", and wrote a memoir called "Blue Rage, Black Redemption."