Tookie’s life lies in the hands of Governor Swarzenegger. Clemency or death – the Governor must decide. Why so much hysteria? It sounds quite simple to me. I believe in something called Justice – a term many have tossed aside lately. Have you ever looked up the definition of “Justice?” According to the Webster’s Dictionary, Justice is “quality of being just, fairness or reasonableness, especially in the way people are treated or decisions are made.”

Most Americans find terrorism a difficult concept to personalize – unless it happens to them – like 911. When we do look at death, 25 years later, we tend to minimize the horror that originally took place. We put blinders on to hide from the truth. Tookie was charged with fatally shooting Albert Owens, a Whittier convenience store worker. He was also convicted of killing two Los Angeles motel owners and their daughter during a robbery. Never mind that he literally tore the face off the daughter with the shotgun blast during the robbery. Twenty-five years later, it doesn’t seem so horrific – or does it? Just ask the relatives of the victims how the past twenty-fives years have been for them.

Tookie Williams has had the opportunity to exhaust all his appeals for the past twenty-five years to spare his life. That’s more fairness and justice than Tookie’s four victims who only had seconds to plead for their lives. That is terrorism in its purest form.

Still, there are many who feel that because he wrote a few children’s books about the evils of gang life, he is truly rehabilitated. There are as many who say he still runs the Crips from behind the prison walls.

I, too, am an author. Does that give me special dispensation to murder? Should all Nobel Prize nominees be given a special pass to murder? How far are we going to carry this?

Reverend Jackson, Snoop Dog and the other celebrities – were you there crying for the injustices for the four murdered victims who were pleading for their lives with as much zeal as you are for the murderer? Were you there rallying for justice when the hundreds of victims were murdered by Tookie’s Crip associates?

December 13th will mark the day justice is finally served for the loss of four innocent human beings who had their lives cut short by a heartless murderer. A series of children’s books will never compensate for their deaths.

Jane LeMOND Alvarez