Telling His Story to Save His Life

Writer Barbara Becnel has made clemency for Stanley Williams a global cause celebre.

So obscure that his conviction for four murders barely made headlines, death row inmate Stanley Tookie Williams owes his notoriety as much to a determined woman who stood by him and to committed death penalty opponents as to his shift from gangster to anti-gang activist.

During a jailhouse visit in 1993 to research a book on gangs, writer Barbara Becnel discovered that Williams, who is scheduled to be executed Dec. 13, had renounced his gang past. Over the next two years, Becnel shed her doubts about the co-founder of the Crips and helped him work to persuade youths to avoid gangs.

Campbell leading 48th fundraising contest

Contributions to the GOP House candidate hit $1.2 million. Jim Gilchrist, in second place, took in $465,000.

WASHINGTON – State Sen. John Campbell, R-Irvine, has raised more money than his two major opponents put together. Going into the final days of the campaign for the 48th Congressional District, he and American Independent Party candidate Jim Gilchrist have the same amount of money in the bank.

Campbell has spent the most money of the three major candidates in the race, sending multiple mailers to district residents and producing radio and cable television commercials.

Candidates to replace former Rep. Christopher Cox had to file statements with the Federal Elections Commission by the end of last week.

The election will be on Dec. 6.

President highlights reforms that his budget underfunded

Ending the catch-and-release policy for illegal aliens, as President Bush called for yesterday, will take years and far more than the current number of detention beds—something Mr. Bush himself underfunded in his most recent budget to Congress.

The president, speaking in Tucson, Ariz., followed the lead of congressional Republicans who have told him that border security must be part of any immigration bill. Mr. Bush also took credit for increases in border and interior enforcement spending, pitched his plan for future foreign workers and endorsed changing laws to allow for quicker deportation of some illegal aliens.