At 12:35 a.m. PST this morning, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, convicted murderer, gang founder, and Nobel Prize-nominated children’s and YA author, was executed by lethal injection at the San Quentin State Prison just outside of San Francisco, reports The Globe and Mail. California’s highest profile capital punishment case in the decades since the state’s restoration of the death penalty in 1977, the Williams case was controversial largely because of the role Williams played from death row in curbing gang violence. ABC News reports on a truce Williams brokered between rival gangs the Bloods and the Crips; however, Williams was best known for the nine books he wrote for children and young adults that warned of the pitfalls of gang violence — books that led to numerous Nobel Prize nominations.

Related links:
Click here for the full story from The Globe and Mail
Click here for background on the Williams case from ABC News