Justice?

A co-founder of the Crips, Tookie Williams was executed this morning, his appeals exhausted, and his pleas of being a different man ignored:

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.

I shed no tear for Tookie, as he refused to take responsibility for his actions, and the violent past that brought him into San Quentin's death chamber. His storied involving that evening have changed, and his claim of innocence evolved. I share with Mitch the discomfort of carrying out the ultimate punishment when considering the possibility of executing an innocent man, but that was not the case here.

However, there is another case that is beginning to gains some attention, and this man is also sitting on death row. (via BotML)

The Cory Maye case is just about the ugliest nexus of race, civil rights violations, southern juries and our criminal justice system that I can think of.

Let's summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frightened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

The Maye case sees no political boundaries. Bloggers of all stripes and colors are presenting what appears on the service to be a travesty. It's not very often the Left, Right, and Libertarians can join hands and fight a common cause. When that happens you almost have to take notice. This is definitely a case that everyone should notice. Let's push this one out there so at least those in a position to right and potential wrongs here can have the time to do their work.

Flash

MORE: Probably the best information on this case can be found at The Agitator. There are mutiple posts there, so be sure to scroll around, but this one has PDF links to key legal documents and other crucial information.