Schwarzenegger adopting stiff clemency criteria for California death-row inmates By DAVID KRAVETS AP Legal Affairs Writer
(AP) - SAN FRANCISCO-The state's oldest convict on death row asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency Tuesday, a day after the governor rejected a similar bid and let Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams die by lethal injection.
<...> Courts normally entertain last-minute appeals based on claims of innocence. All of which means a condemned inmate who argues his innocence is likely doomed under Schwarzenegger, which increases the possibility of someone being wrongly executed, attorneys said.
"Clemency is a safety valve for what the courts can't fix, and to die because you don't admit your guilt is not what clemency is about," said Stephen Greenwald, a capital defense attorney and president of Metropolitan College of New York. "Clemency is looking at other facts outside the court record and making a judgment from the concept of mercy for some larger idea of justice." <...>
Leigh