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Stay of execution sought for Crips gang founder

SAN FRANCISCO - Supporters of former gang leader and convicted killer Stanley Tookie Williams made a last-minute pitch to save his life Sunday, saying they had a new witness, while prosecutors asked the California Supreme Court to allow his execution to go forward as scheduled early Tuesday.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Brault wrote to the court that Williams' request for a stay of execution "is without merit and is manifestly designed for delay."

Her brief came hours after a lawyer for Williams urged the court to stop the execution on the grounds that Williams should have been allowed to argue at his 1981 trial that someone else killed one of his four alleged victims. She also noted state lawmakers are expected to consider a moratorium on the death penalty next month.

The justices didn't immediately rule on either request. They earlier denied a defense request to reopen the case over allegations that shoddy forensics linked a weapon used in three of the 1979 murders to a shotgun registered to Williams.

Williams has one other avenue for a reprieve besides the courts - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said last week that he was agonizing over Williams' request for clemency.

On Sunday, Williams' supporters made a last-minute pitch to the governor, saying that a man who could help prove Williams' innocence had come forward. The man's statements were sent to Schwarzenegger's office, where the staff said he wouldn't announce his decision on the clemency request before today.

As a young man, Williams co-founded Los Angeles' violent Crips street gang, but his supporters say he has turned his life around and redeemed himself.

Clemency for convicted killers hasn't been common in California, though. Schwarzenegger denied the only two previous requests to cross his desk. The last California governor to grant clemency was Ronald Reagan, who spared a mentally ill killer in 1967.

Williams, 51, was convicted of killing a man during a robbery in February 1979 and of murdering a couple and their daughter at a South Los Angeles motel in March 1979.

He denies committing the murders but has apologized for founding the Crips, a gang prosecutors blamed for thousands of murders in Los Angeles and beyond.

[Last modified December 12, 2005, 01:11:08]