On Friday, it was reported in the LA Times, that on Dec. 8, Governor Schwarzenegger will hold a
private clemency hearing for Stanley "Tookie" Williams, co-founder of the Crips gang from Los Angeles. Attending will be William's lawyers and the victims' family members. Williams is scheduled for execution on December 13, 2005. The story is being covered heavily by many of the news networks.
There is another story that might inform the discussions of clemency for Tookie Williams, specifically as to crime, punishment and rehabilitation. It is the story of Wilbert Rideau. Perhaps when you hear the televised news stories about Stanley Williams, you might compare them to Mr. Rideau's story.
Sara R's Diary has covered much of the background of the
Tookie Williams story. It raises one of those grinding questions that we often have to face. When is a person reformed, or rehabilitated? How do we judge to execute a man, when he seems to have attempted to make up for his wrongdoings by preventing others from going to the same place? Williams has written an award winning series of books for youths, encouraging them to avoid the gang life. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Yet he faces an uphill climb in his quest for clemency, meaning life imprisonment, instead of execution. As discussed by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, the Governor does not tend to grant clemency. Stanley Williams might not be able to continue a life during which he could be able to contribute to rescuing young folks from the lure of the gang lifestyle. How many kids does he have to keep on the straight and narrow before he has atoned?
Like Tookie Williams, Wilbert Rideau, an African American, hails from Louisiana.
A few years ago, or maybe it was more than a few, like 12 years ago, I visited with my aunt and uncle in Louisiana, upstream of Baton Rouge about an hour. They were retired psychologists, both Ph.D.s, specializing in educational psychology and specific learning disabilities. My aunt worked part time with the school system which served the children of the prison guards at Angola, The State Penitentiary of Louisiana. She took me on a trip to visit the Angola Prison, as a guest of one of the guard's families. It was here that I first heard the story of Wilbert Rideau. Wilbert Rideau was sentenced to death for the murder of a bank employee in 1961, and sent to Angola Prison. Many of the quotes to follow are from Amy Bach's 2002 article in The Nation magazine, entitled Unforgiven or from Mr. Rideau's website.
The article describes the circumstances of the crime, but more importantly, it discusses the motivations that led Rideau to the crime and what happened to him during his life in prison.
Life in the South in the early 60's had left him discouraged about the situation of African Americans.
I had just reached a point when I saw life in terms of us and them," Wilbert told Louisiana writer Anne Butler in 1990. "Somewhere along the way, I had concluded that 'they' had everything, that this was the way it worked. Well, I wasn't gonna accept it on those terms. . . . The situation was intolerable, unacceptable. . . . I just wanted change; I wanted something better than this. I wanted out, I guess, much the same as that person who'll go sit in the car and pipe the fumes in. And wanting out was at a desperate enough level that even when I was standing before the judge and being sentenced to death, it didn't mean nothing. I had just reached that level of despair, desperation, whatever.
Mr. Rideau faced an uphill climb in his journey through the legal system, starting in 1961.
That year, the first of three all-white, all-male juries convicted Rideau and sentenced him to death. Rideau appealed on grounds that a TV station, KPLC-TV, had secretly filmed the sheriff posing questions to Rideau, who had no access to a lawyer, and aired his mumbled answers as a confession. The US Supreme Court slammed the parish's "kangaroo court proceedings" and found that the broadcast had unfairly prejudiced the jury pool. The Court reversed the conviction and said Rideau could not be tried anywhere within the reach of KPLC. In 1964 at a second trial, in Baton Rouge, the jury deliberated for fifteen minutes before deciding to give him the electric chair. Rideau appealed again, and a federal court overturned his conviction on grounds that the state court had rejected jurors with doubts about the death penalty, in effect stacking the jury with death penalty proponents--a violation of due process. In 1970 at a third trial, in Baton Rouge, the jury took eight minutes to give Rideau the death penalty. His appeals were unsuccessful, and he returned to death row--just in time to benefit from Furman v. Georgia, the 1972 Supreme Court decision that temporarily found the death penalty unconstitutional. As a result, every death-row inmate in America, including Rideau, had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
It is the journey Mr. Rideau went on while at Angola that is worth reading about, especially when considering the fate of Stanley Williams. He attempted to join the staff of The Angolite, the prison newsletter, but was initially rebuffed by the prison authorities, as at that point, The Angolite had an all-white staff. So Wilbert Rideau gathered up a group of African American prisoners, and formed a new magazine, entitled The Lifer.
He also began to make friends among the white prison population.
When Rideau led white prisoners in a strike as well, the prison put him in solitary confinement. And to Rideau's shock, whites began secretly sending him food and kind words. "Whites started taking care of me," he said. [snip]
Eventually, the administration put him out of business. "They threw me in the dungeon saying I was advocating insurrection," he says. White prisoners petitioned a black senator to demand Rideau's release from solitary confinement. "Along the way, the whites that I initially saw as enemies befriended me and fought for me, not blacks," he says. "That experience caused hell with the way I saw things." .
In the end, Mr. Rideau did get to work on The Angolite, as a result of a federal court order mandating integration of the prison. In fact, he was appointed editor. He developed a relationship with the new warden, C. Paul Phelps, as a mentor. Mr. Rideau began to change.
Over the years, the two men had many philosophical and political discussions. And they ate together in the dining hall. "He told me that like begets like," Rideau says. Phelps permitted Rideau to become a public speaker, a reward for well-behaved prisoners to travel and explain the dangers of prison life to youth at risk. And with his new freedom, Rideau jettisoned a longtime plan to escape. "The thing that is most respected in prison is character, loyalty, keeping your word," says Rideau. "These are things that are highly valued in the real world, but they are really, really valued in ours." This and the passage of time have changed him. "Part of it is just growing up," he says. And growing up has meant a realization that he may die in prison. Since 1997 Rideau has been president of the Angola Human Relations Club, which cares for elderly inmates by providing such essentials as toiletries, warm caps and gloves, and which buries the dead. .
Under his leadership, The Angolite prospered.
After Rideau became editor of The Angolite, the paper changed from a mimeographed newsletter into a glossy magazine exposing systemic problems and an emotional inner life. One story revealed that the Department of Corrections had doled out money for AIDS programs that were never implemented. Another issue featured pictures of inmates after electrocution--a portrait so horrifying that Louisiana changed its method to lethal injection. The magazine has won seven nominations for a National Magazine Award, and Rideau has won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the George Polk Award....
In addition, Rideau co-directed a film about the Angola prison, The Farm, which was nominated for an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary. He garnered numerous awards and honors, and became a correspondent for NPR's Fresh Air. How many contributions of Mr. Rideau's would not have been made, had he been executed after his first trial? Is it not possible that the same could be said of Stanley Williams?
Among the statements made about Mr. Rideau by various prison officials are these:
"If ever an individual has been rehabilitated, I think Wilbert Rideau has,"
- Peggi Gresham, retired Assistant Warden and Angolite supervisor for 12 years, testifying before the 1986 pardon board, quoted in the Times-Picayune, May 8, 1986.
"As an inmate, he has done everything anybody could ask of him. He has a free mind trapped in a convict's body. He's a person of high integrity."
- C. Paul Phelps, Secretary of Corrections, quoted in the Dallas Morning News, June 15, 1986.
"Whatever standard of rehabilitation you pick, Wilbert Rideau exceeds it."
- C. Paul Phelps, quoted in the Daily Reveille (LSU), November 14, 1986.
"I think he's totally rehabilitated."
- Lt. Governor Bobby Freeman, quoted in the Louisiana Weekly, July 25, 1987.
"If I reacted solely on my personal beliefs, I would sign the pardon. I agree with those who say he has been rehabilitated."
- Governor Edwin Edwards, press conference June 17, 1986, reported statewide. .
The inequities of Mr. Rideau's length of imprisonment are also elaborated at his web site.
The story of Wilbert Rideau and Angola came to an end, of sorts, in January of this year. During his fourth trial for the crime, Wilbert Rideau's conviction was changed by the jury to manslaughter, and he was released for time served, after 44 years in jail. They still won't let him alone, though. He has been ordered pay court costs of around $100,000. Some things never change.
I was struck by the similarity between the Stanley Williams story and that of Wilbert Rideau. I hope it is acceptable to both men that I use their names together.
Stanley Williams' clemency hearing is in six days. Could he be the same, or even better man, than Wilbert Rideau? Let us hope the Governor has the strength to see through to the truthful answer to this difficult decision.