Europe.
Murder and killing and not the same thing. Most of us in the United States recognize this; clearly those of Europe do not.
“The execution of convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams sparked outrage Tuesday throughout Europe, which has a deep aversion to capital punishment.”
The disappointment was particularly strong in Austria, native country of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, where many had hoped the former bodybuilder and film star would spare the 51-year-old Williams.
Leaders of Austria’s opposition Green Party even called for Schwarzenegger to be stripped of his Austrian citizenship _ a demand rejected by Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel as “absurd” despite his government’s opposition to the death penalty.
Capital punishment is illegal throughout the European Union, and the issue was amplified in Williams’ case due to the remorse supporters believe the Crips gang co-founder showed by writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs and violence.
Volker Beck, a leading member of the opposition Greens party in Germany, expressed disappointment at the execution. “Schwarzenegger’s decision is a cowardly decision,” he told the Netzeitung online newspaper.
In Graz, Schwarzenegger’s hometown, local Greens said they would file a petition to remove the California governor’s name from the city’s Arnold Schwarzenegger Stadium. A Christian political group suggested it be renamed for Williams.
In Italy, Franco Danieli, vice president of the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized executions as an act of “dehumanization.”
“The execution of Tookie Williams is even more intolerable exactly because he had managed to transform the negative into the positive, violence into nonviolence,” Danieli said.
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For Those of You Who Believe the Death Penalty Is Racist:
From the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice statistics:
In 2004: 59 persons in 12 States were executed — 23 in Texas; 7 in Ohio; 6 in Oklahoma; 5 in Virginia; 4 each in North Carolina and South Carolina, 2 each in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Nevada; and 1 each in Arkansas and Maryland.
Of persons executed in 2004:
36 were white–
19 were black–
3 were Hispanic (all white)–
1 Asian
Of persons under sentence of death in 2004:
1,851 were white —
1,390 were black —
28 were American Indian —
32 were Asian —
14 were of unknown race
Number of prisoners under sentence of death, 1968-2004:
Year White Black Other
1968 243 271 3
1986 1,013 762 25
1989 1,308 898 37
1994 1,653 1,203 49
2000 1,989 1,538 71
2004 1,851 1,390 74
Source: Capital Punishment 2004, November 2005, NCJ 211349
Race of Defendants Executed in US Since 1976:
BLACK 339 34%
HISPANIC 63 6%
WHITE 579 58%
OTHER 22 2.3%
