»In which we are the executioner

The death warrant for Stanley Williams is valid for today, Tuesday 13 December 2005.

The State of California, of which I am a rate-paying citizen, put Stanley "Tookie" Williams to death by lethal injection at 0001 today.

The death penalty is wrong. It is a final statment of justice, without allowing for error on the part of investigators, prosecutors, defenders, public sentiment, or scientific procedure, all of which have been at fault in many of the cases that have brought murderers to Death Row. The infantile adaption of "an eye for an eye" means that we have somehow either become as bad -- immoral -- as the people we sentence to die, or we have become supremely good, so that we can pass judgement from which there is no recourse.

    You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

Whether or not Tookie is innocent of the murders for which we convicted him is immaterial -- incarceration, rehabilitation, and eventual readmittance to society is the goal of our penal system. State-sponsored execution is no better than murder at solving a problem.