Why We Have the Death Penalty

I've probably heard all of the arguments against the death penalty. I understand some people have good reasons for opposing the death penalty in California.

However, I am so convinced that Manling Tsang Williams deserves to be executed that I would not hesitate to strap her down and push the buttons myself. Lethal injection is too good for her.

She has shamed the Tsang family and doesn't deserve the Williams name.

Haven't heard of her? No Lifetime Original Movie will be made about her.

From the Whittier Daily News comes this report from Brian Day. Whittier and Rowland Heights are communities east of Los Angeles, in eastern Los Angeles County.

A judge sentenced Manling Tsang Williams to death Thursday for smothering her two young children with a pillow and slashing her husband to death with a sword in the family's Rowland Heights home in 2007.

2007. She should be dead already. Neal Williams, the man to whom she had made vows, was 27. Their sons were 7 and 3.

A jury convicted Manling Williams of three counts of first-degree murder in 2010, along with the special allegations of using weapons and lying in wait. After one jury was unable to agree on whether to sentence her to death or life imprisonment, a second penalty phase jury recommended last year that she be put to death.

Please tell me that the people who were siding with the life sentence were hoping it would make it easier for another prisoner to beat her to death.

"The evidence is compelling that the defendant, for selfish reasons, murdered her own two children," [Judge] Martinez said.

Her motivation, Martinez said, was a "narcissistic, selfish and adolescent" desire to start a new life with another man, free from the hindrances of family life.

In the months before the murders, Manling Williams had reconnected through the Internet with an old friend and began a relationship with him.

The judge pointed out that Manling Williams had numerous family members who would have taken in the children, should she have decided to abandon them.

She could have left them with Neal, who worked at Disneyland, by the way. He helped bring happiness to strangers.

After smothering Devon and Ian in their bunk bed, "The defendant savagely, brutally and viciously attacked her husband with a katana sword," Martinez said.

Neal Williams was stabbed and slashed more than 97 times in the attack, investigators said.

"In the final moments of life, Neal begged the defendant for help," the judge said.

Don't try to tell me lethal injection is "cruel and unusual" punishment. It is too good for her.

Defense attorneys Tom Althaus and Haydeh Takasugi argued for their client's life to be spared.

Althaus told the court that the killings were not calculated executions, but a "sudden mistake."

This is exactly why I couldn't be a defense attorney.

"There's no basis for the prosecution's contention that these murders were planned," Althaus said, adding that Manling Williams was in a state of "extreme mental and emotional disturbance" when she killed her husband and sons.

Neal was no doubt in a state of extreme mental and emotional disturbance and physical disturbance but he didn't murder anyone. And yes, there is a basis for the contention that these murders were planned - at least the second and third ones. Unless she's a giant octupus and killed everyone simultaneously.

Mitigating factors also included a difficult upbringing and no previous history of violence, he said.

Who didn't have a difficult upbringing? So she assassinated the character of her family. Great. Let's say it is all true. She should have THANKED Neal every day for being her parenther in a BETTER life. No previous history of violence... that's a good one. How many husbands and kids did she have before?

Althaus acknowledged that his client had had an extra-marital affair, but disputed the prosecution's assertion that the affair formed a motive for the crime.

A tramp as well as a murderer.

Out of more than 700 California death row inmates, fewer than two dozen of them are women, and none has been among the 13 prisoners executed since the death penalty was restored in 1976.

This is an outrage. Those vicious murderers are sitting there with shelter, health care, meals, running water, security protection, recreation, communication with others, and so many other things. We should execute at least one a week until Death Row is vacant.

Martinez said that the evidence showed that Manling Williams had planned the killings two months in advance, and immediately began trying to conceal her guilt afterward.

She wore latex gloves as she attacked her husband, he said.

Testimony indicated it takes five to 10 minutes for a person to die by suffocation, meaning that Manling Williams had at least five minutes to contemplate her actions while killing one of her children before killing her other son in the same manner, Martinez said.

"She clearly had time to reflect on what she was doing," he said.

Following the killings, the judge said, Manling Williams typed up a note indicating that Neal Williams had killed the children and himself, she disposed of bloody clothing and returned home before screaming to neighbors that someone had killed her family.

While being interviewed by detectives after the discovery of the bodies, "For hours, she feigned grief, sadness and bewilderment," Martinez said.

It was only after being confronted by investigators with a bloody cigarette box that was found in her car that Manling Williams broke down and admitted the murders, Martinez said.

Neal married the wrong woman. That was his biggest mistake.