Execution Alert!

The Attorney General has announced it will be seeking execution dates in three California death penalty cases.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams - December 13th
Clarence Ray Allen - January 17th
Michael Morales - February 2006

We will be sending out more detailed information on each of the cases in the near future.


Oct. 11, 2005

Supreme Court denies two California death penalty appeals
By Howard Mintz
San Jose Mercury News

The U.S. Supreme Court today turned away the final appeals of two California death row inmates, setting the stage for what could be the busiest year in San Quentin's execution chamber since the state restored capital punishment in 1978.

In one of the cases, the justices refused to review the case of Stanley ``Tookie'' Williams, a Los Angeles gang leader who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on several occasions for his work fighting youth gangs over the past decade. Williams, on death row for three 1979 murders, now must hope for clemency from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who faces his toughest test to date on his views on the death penalty.

A federal appeals court earlier this year rejected Williams' legal appeals, although a number of judges dissented, saying they were concerned his trial had been tainted by racial issues in jury selection. But the Supreme Court, without comment, denied Williams' attempt to revive his appeal.

The Supreme Court also Tuesday refused to hear the final appeals of Michael Angelo Morales, sentenced to die in 1983 for the torture and murder of a young San Joaquin County woman. A Ventura County jury recommended the death penalty for Morales, whose case was moved because of concern about pretrial publicity in San Joaquin.

With Morales and Williams now facing execution dates early next year, California is confronting the prospect of three executions in 2006 -- which would be the most since the state resumed the death penalty decades ago. The Supreme Court last week rejected the final appeal of Clarence Ray Allen, a 75-year-old inmate on death row for more than twenty years for orchestrating four central valley murders.

There are more than 640 inmates on death row, but California has had just 11 executions since 1978.



Stefanie L. Faucher
Program Director

Death Penalty Focus
870 Market St. Ste. 859
San Francisco, CA 94102
Tel. 415-243-0143
Fax 415-243-0994
mailto:stefanie [at] deathpenalty.org
http://www.deathpenalty.org
http://www.californiamoratorium.org