Stanley 'Tookie' Williams

HOC. ITALIAN ‘GOVERNORS’ PRESENT CLEMENCY APPEAL FOR STANLEY ‘TOOKIE’ WILLIAMS

December 3, 2005: the press conference for the presentation of the appeal by Italy’s ‘Governors’ to ask California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger clemency for Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams, scheduled to be put to death on December 13, was held in Rome at Hands Off Cain’s headquarters.
All of Italy’s regional Presidents bar Riccardo Illy, the President of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, gave their support to the appeal together with numerous Italian Parliamentarians.
Ottaviano Del Turco, ‘Governor’ of Abruzzo, underlined the differences between the powers held by an Italian ‘Governor’ and one in the US who had to make the dreadful choice between life and death. For this reason Del Turco expressed his appreciation for former Illinois Governor George Ryan, currently Honorary President of Hands Off Cain, and his final gesture in power of emptying the state’s death row.
Pietro Folena MP highlighted the cross party support given to the appeal for Stanley Williams within Italy’s Parliament and commitments to work with Hands Off Cain in the campaign for a moratorium on capital executions established by the UN General Assembly. 
Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, speaking from the United States, said it was his awareness of the numerous judicial errors committed in Illinois’ capital cases that induced him to introduce a moratorium which is currently in effect to this day. Ryan added that he was unsure whether to take as a positive or negative sign Schwarzenegger’s decision to fix a private audition for Tookie’s clemency for December 8. It was the first time in thirteen years that such a measure had been taken.
Commenting on the decision taken by the President of Friuli Venezia Giulia to deny his support to Williams’ appeal on the basis of being against mobilization on individual cases, Hands Off Cain Secretary Sergio D’Elia commented: “We would have appreciated Illy’s anti-conformism and his gesture would have been given more credibility if, in these years, since becoming mayor of Trieste until now as President of the Friuli region, he had adhered to or supported Hands Off Cain’s campaign for a universal moratorium on capital executions. That is to say the suspension of the death penalty for any single case but a moratorium for all whether they be American, Chinese or Iranian.”
Francesca Mambro, coordinator of the campaign to save Stanley Williams, announced that the appeal had been sent to Pope Benedict XVI for his intervention in the case.
HOC Treasurer Elizabetta Zamparutti presented the latest death penalty figures for the United States, which is continuing to see a slump in the number of executions carried out, sentences past and a diminishing of support for capital punishment. (Sources: HOC, 03/12/2005)