Tookie Williams: Final Appeal Rejected

Tookie Williams ' final appeal has been rejected by the US Supreme Court:

CNN.com - Supreme Court rejects Williams' plea - Dec 12, 2005The high court was the former gang leader's last chance to avoid death by injection after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied him clemency earlier Monday and a federal appeals court panel rejected a request to stay his execution.

Williams, who co-founded the Crips street gang in Los Angeles, is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday (3:01 a.m. ET) at San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco.

The new witness brought forth in the 11th hr didn't seem to do much good , either. Gordon Bradbury von Ellerman, a former jail trusty apparently in the jail at the same time as Tookie Williams in 1979, says that the LA Sheriffs Department used trusties routinely in the jail:

In their appeal to the 9th Circuit, his attorneys pinned their hopes on the declaration of a new witness -- Gordon Bradbury von Ellerman -- a jail trusty detained with Williams in the Los Angeles County Jail from 1979 to 1980.

In the affidavit, von Ellerman said he was the cellmate of another trusty, identified as George "Roger" Oglesby.

Von Ellerman said Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel provided Oglesby with documents to aid him in testifying against Williams in return for reduced or dropped charges.

"I was personally aware that Los Angeles Sheriff's Department personnel would often provide information to these inmates so that they could help frame defendants for crimes," he said in the statement

Where was this guy over the last 25 years? There's also a lot of focus in media articles and news broadcasts that Tookie Williams was a Nobel Prize nominee, however note that the Nobel Committee only releases the names of nominees 50 years after they have been nominated, partly to save the Committee from embarrassment at such nominations and possible prize winners like Adolph Hitler in 1939 (that nomination was retracted, but still, it happened.) Note the following:

Nominations for the prize may be made by a broad array of prominent individuals, including former recipients, members of national assemblies, university professors, international judges, and special advisors to the prize committee. In some years as many as 199 nominations have been received. The nominations are kept secret by the committee which asks that nominators do the same. Over time many individuals have become known as "Nobel Peace Prize Nominees", but this designation has no official standing