Today, lawyers for Stanley "Tookie" Williams delivered their arguments on why their client should not be executed next Tuesday.

I would argue he shouldn't be, but that's primarily because I'm opposed to the death penalty. The state shouldn't take peoples' lives as punishment for a crime.

The risk of killing an innocent is simply too great a price to pay to slake public thirst for vengeance. And even if the criminal justice system were perfect, which it most decidedly is not, succumbing to that impulse diminishes a society's collective humanity.

That leaves the issue of clemency to avoid executing an innocent man, and mercy.

In the news coverage I've seen, precious little has justified  Williams' claims of innocence in this case.

Here is an excerpt from SaveTookie.org:

He maintains innocence of the crimes he was accused of, and faced racist discrimination throughout his trial. One issue highlighted the fact that the prosecutor in Tookie's original case removed three African-American jurors from the jury. During Stan's trial, this prosecutor made racially-coded remarks during his closing argument, comparing Stan during the trial to a Bengal tiger in the zoo and stating that a black community - South Central Los Angeles - was equivalent to the natural "habitat" of a Bengal Tiger.

Conservative commentator Debra Saunders says this:

 In the clemency petition, Williams' latest set of lawyers argued that prosecutor Robert Martin had kicked all African Americans off the jury. When prosecutors produced a death certificate that showed that juror William McLurkin was black, the lawyers noted in a reply that it doesn't matter if McLurkin was black or part-black, because he "looked Filipino."

She also notes that Tookie.com acknowledges there was a Latino and a Filipino on the jury.

A Globe and Mail article on the weekend had this:

Tookie says that he was framed by the police and informers and the case was "flimsy and predicated on circumstantial evidence."

But according to Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley, in his response to the clemency request, there was extensive physical evidence against Tookie, including a shotgun registered to him used in the crimes, and eyewitness statements. Repeated appeals to the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have let the original jury convictions stand.

Prosecutors, like almost anyone else, don't like to admit mistakes. Having done some reporting on the David Milgaard case in the early 1990s, I've seen up close that the Crown doesn't readily admit it has wrongfully convicted someone.

Eyewitness evidence actually isn't that reliable. Police do exert pressure on witnesses (both happened in Milgaard).

But the defence also wants to put its client in the most positive light possible, and rarely concedes evidence that points to guilt.

One thing that amazes me is Tookie's claim that he's never killed anyone. You don't rise in hardcore gang hierarchy, let alone reach a leadership position, without being willing to take a life for the team.

And Tookie had no problems tossing chemicals in the face of prison guards, as one example of his hardness.

What I find particularly interesting are the celebrity moths that have gathered around his light -- Jamie Foxx, Snoop Doog, Winnie Mandela (what does she know about his case?).

I believe they support Williams less because they think his conviction was an injustice or the redemptive nature of his story (he has become an anti-gang advocate in his latter years) than because of his ongoing star power and charisma.

Executing a potentially good cocktail party guest is such a waste.

Here is what Eugene Robinson wrote last Friday in the Washington Post:

Tookie Williams is 51; his body has softened, his rage dissipated. The state of California will not be killing the same man it sentenced to death 24 years ago. But don't buy the argument that he's a special case, because he's not.