Despite those high profile pleas from the likes of Snoop Dogg, former gang leader Stanley 'Tookie' Williams was executed by lethal injection in California this morning. As previously reported, Stanley 'Tookie' Williams was sentenced to death back in 1981 for the murder of four people - charges he always denied. He has been in prison ever since his conviction, but has used much of that time working from behind bars on a number of projects urging young people in the US to stay out of gangs - work that has earned him a number of Nobel Peace Prize nominations.
With that in mind, Snoop Dogg and other high profile names called for Williams' sentence to be reduced to life imprisonment - the ultimate decision on which was down to Californian state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite increasing media coverage for the case, Williams' chances of reprieve never looked good because no previous governor has granted clemency since the death penalty was restored in California in 1978, and Schwarzenegger was unlikely to take the political gamble of altering that record (though it may as yet prove that, given the high profile support for Williams, actually Schwarzenegger has taken a political gamble in not altering that record).
Snoop Dogg et al are yet to comment on Williams' death, but Kate Allen, UK Director of Amnesty International UK, has just issued this statement: "This is yet another sad milestone in the history of the US justice system. Tookie Williams' violent past was well known but he had become a textbook version of rehabilitation and his execution was a travesty of justice".