Stan "Tookie" Williams has been executed — after California Governor Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger rejected pleas for mercy.
The 51-year-old was given a lethal injection just after midnight.
Schwarzenegger was not swayed by appeals for clemency from stars including Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, who portrayed Williams in a 2004 movie, and rapper Snoop Dogg.
Williams founded Los Angeles’ notorious Crips street gang and murdered four people in 1979.
Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes argued that Williams’ sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he had made amends by writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs and violence.
The case became the state’s highest-profile execution in decades.
Schwarzenegger, who deliberated for three days, could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.
But he said last night: "I could find no justification for granting clemency."
Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple’s daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned.
He denies the murders but has apologised for founding the gang blamed for thousands of killings.
Witnesses at the trial said Williams boasted about the killings, stating "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him."
Williams then made a growling noise and laughed for five to six minutes, according to the transcript that the governor referenced in his denial of clemency.
Fifty witnesses attended the execution at San Quentin State Prison — against Williams’ wishes.
About 1,000 death penalty supporters and opponents gathered outside the prison awaiting the execution along with singer Joan Baez, actor Mike Farrell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
"Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here is here to try to enlist the morality and soul of this country," said Baez who sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; on a small plywood stage set up just outside the gates.
A contingent of 40 people who had walked approximately 25 miles from San Francisco held signs calling for an end to "state-sponsored murder."
Others said they wanted to honour the memory of Williams’ victims.
During Williams’ 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
"There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," Williams said recently during an interview.
"I haven’t had a lot of joy in my life. But in here," he said, pointing to his heart, "I’m happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here."
Williams was the 12th person executed in California since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
The 51-year-old was given a lethal injection just after midnight.
Schwarzenegger was not swayed by appeals for clemency from stars including Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, who portrayed Williams in a 2004 movie, and rapper Snoop Dogg.
Williams founded Los Angeles’ notorious Crips street gang and murdered four people in 1979.
Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes argued that Williams’ sentence should be commuted to life in prison because he had made amends by writing children’s books about the dangers of gangs and violence.
The case became the state’s highest-profile execution in decades.
Schwarzenegger, who deliberated for three days, could have commuted the death sentence to life in prison without parole.
But he said last night: "I could find no justification for granting clemency."
Williams was condemned in 1981 for gunning down convenience store clerk Albert Owens, 26, at a 7-Eleven in Whittier and killing Yen-I Yang, 76, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, 63, and the couple’s daughter Yu-Chin Yang Lin, 43, at the Los Angeles motel they owned.
He denies the murders but has apologised for founding the gang blamed for thousands of killings.
Witnesses at the trial said Williams boasted about the killings, stating "You should have heard the way he sounded when I shot him."
Williams then made a growling noise and laughed for five to six minutes, according to the transcript that the governor referenced in his denial of clemency.
Fifty witnesses attended the execution at San Quentin State Prison — against Williams’ wishes.
About 1,000 death penalty supporters and opponents gathered outside the prison awaiting the execution along with singer Joan Baez, actor Mike Farrell and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
"Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here is here to try to enlist the morality and soul of this country," said Baez who sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot; on a small plywood stage set up just outside the gates.
A contingent of 40 people who had walked approximately 25 miles from San Francisco held signs calling for an end to "state-sponsored murder."
Others said they wanted to honour the memory of Williams’ victims.
During Williams’ 24 years on death row, a Swiss legislator, college professors and others nominated him for the Nobel Prizes in peace and literature.
"There is no part of me that existed then that exists now," Williams said recently during an interview.
"I haven’t had a lot of joy in my life. But in here," he said, pointing to his heart, "I’m happy. I am peaceful in here. I am joyful in here."
Williams was the 12th person executed in California since lawmakers reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
