Moreover, he said, after Williams' arrest, he conspired to escape "by blowing up a jail transportation bus and killing the deputies guarding" it. Although the escape was never carried out, "there are detailed escape plans in Williams' own handwriting," the statement said, adding that an escape plan is "consistent with guilt, not innocence."
Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said she thought that Williams' clemency bid was plagued from the start by his position that he would never acknowledge that he committed the four murders.
"I will never admit capital crimes that I did not commit -- not even to save my life," Williams wrote in his 2004 autobiography "Blue Rage, Black Redemption." He repeated that position Monday afternoon in a conversation with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jackson told reporters.
"Tookie wanted to have it both ways -- he wanted to maintain his actual innocence claim so that he would have something to argue in the courts, but he still wanted to claim that he had been redeemed," Levenson said. "In the end, he lost on both fronts."
In addition to arguing that Williams' continued claims of innocence should be counted against him, the governor made a point of quoting the dedication of Williams' 1998 book "Life in Prison."
In the dedication, Williams named 11 people, all of whom had been imprisoned or in custody. Among them were Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid leader; Malcolm X, the black nationalist leader assassinated in 1965; and Angela Davis, the black Marxist professor acquitted of murder charges in 1972.
Schwarzenegger and his aides focused on one name on the list -- George Jackson, the author of "Soledad Brother," a book about life in prison. Jackson was "gunned down on the upper yard at San Quentin Prison" on Aug. 21, 1971, in a "foiled escape attempt on a day of unparalleled violence in the prison that left three officers and three inmates dead," Schwarzenegger said.
"The inclusion of George Jackson on this list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed and that he still sees violence and lawlessness as a legitimate means to address societal problems," the governor said.
Finally, Schwarzenegger discounted the main arguments made by backers of clemency -- that Williams should be kept alive because of the power of his anti-gang message.
