Death Row Inmate Loses Appeal

Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the co-founder of the notorious Los Angeles Crips street gang whose reformation in prison earned him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, has lost an appeal against his death sentence.

But in an unusual move, a federal appeals panel suggested that Williams' efforts to speak out against gang violence through a series of children's books might be grounds for clemency from California Gov. Gray Davis.

Williams, 48, has been on death row since 1981 for four murder-robberies in 1979 at the height of gang warfare on the streets of south central Los Angeles.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected his claim of jury prejudice and a claim that a witness had been beaten and threatened by police, and upheld the death penalty against him.

But Judge Procter Hug said the court was "aware of Williams' 2001 Nobel Peace Prize nomination for his laudable efforts opposing gang violence from his prison cell, notably his line of children's books subtitled 'Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence' and his creation of the Internet Project for Street Peace."

Hug said Williams' good works since he was jailed "may make him a worthy candidate for exercise of gubernatorial discretion" although Hug said the appeals court did not have the discretion to make such a decision.

Davis has refused to grant clemency to any prisoner on death row since he took office in 1998. A spokesman for Davis said it was too early to say what decision he would take in the Williams case.

Williams' series of books for children and Web site efforts to dissuade young people from gang life received international attention in the late 1990s, leading to his nomination by a Swiss member of parliament for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The nomination caused a furor in California, where it was decried by police groups, and Williams did not win the prize. But he has since been nominated for further peace and literary awards.

Williams founded the Crips gang in 1971 with high school friend Raymond Washington. It spawned hundreds of copycat gangs across the nation and a bloody rivalry with the Bloods that brought terror to the streets of run-down south central Los Angeles. Washington was killed in a gang fight in 1979.

Williams, who claims he is innocent of the four execution-style murders during two separate robberies, has said he rejected his past after two years reflection in solitary confinement.