Stanley Tookie Williams was executed by lethal injection

Stanley Tookie Williams was executed by lethal injection for 4 1979 Los Angeles-area murders that he denied committing.
Williams, 51, was pronounced dead at 12:35 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison
The case generated widespread interest and fierce debate over the death penalty in the United States because Williams, 51, has written a series of books warning young people against gangs.
"Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case," Schwarzenegger wrote on December 12 in denying clemency.
"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings there can be no redemption."
"Based on the cumulative weight of the evidence, there is no reason to second guess the jury's decision of guilt or raise significant doubts or serious reservations about Williams' convictions and death sentence."
Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson said he broke the news later in the afternoon that Schwarzenegger had denied clemency as Williams met several supporters in prison.
"He said 'Don't cry, let's remain strong,'" Jackson told Reuters. "He smiled, you know, with a certain strength, a certain resolve."
"I think he feels a comfort in his new legacy as a social transformer," Jackson said.
"I am not the kind of person to sit around and worry about being executed," Williams told Reuters last month. "I have faith and if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way."
A prison spokesman described Williams as quiet and cooperative and said he did not request any special final meal after eating oatmeal and drinking milk earlier in the day.
Some 2,000 opponents of the death penalty gathered outside the gates of San Quentin. Joan Baez, who sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" outside the prison, called the execution "planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder."
Hands Off Cain had campaigned for clemency in the case by promoting an appeal, sponsored by 19 of Italy's 20 regional 'Governors' and by over a hundred parliamentarians from all political factions as well as a large number of Italy's actors and directors including Bernardo Bertolucci and Monica Bellucci.
Williams was condemned in 1981 for using a sawed-off shot gun to kill 7-Eleven clerk Albert Owens, 26, on Feb. 28, 1979 during a $120 robbery, and for the March 11, 1979, killings of a family of Taiwanese immigrants running a motel, Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43, during a $100 robbery.
Williams is the 12th person put to death in California since the state resumed executions in 1992 after a 25-year suspension because of court rulings. No capital case in the state had stirred such national and international attention since Caryl Chessman -- like Williams, an author of books from death row -- was executed in the gas chamber in 1960 for rape and kidnapping.
Williams becomes the 59th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1003rd since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.