Stanley "Tookie" Williams, founder of LA's Crips gang, was executed yesterday by the state of California, despite pleas for clemency from anti-death penalty groups and a cast of celebrities. The crowds outside San Quentin weren't advocating for justice—they were advocating for Tookie Williams the personality. Lost in the flashbulbs was the case for why killing Mr. Williams was wrong even if one's personal sense of justice suggests that he deserved to die: The Constitution's acknowledgment of government's fallibility and limitations—the bedrock of our society—is violated when the state trespasses onto ontological grounds and kills rather than punishes.

What could be more ridiculous and alienating to ambivalent Americans than trying to convince them that a four-time murderer who spawned a culture of death that is still claiming lives and who refuses to admit to his guilt should be singled out for clemency because he has since written children's books and spoken against gang violence? How about Snoop Dogg making the case for mercy because of Williams’ success in steering kids away from gang violence? Remember Snoop's recent hit "Drop it Like it's Hot"? He rhymes: "I'm a gangsta, but y'all knew that…I keep a blue flag hanging out my backside but only on the left side, yeah that's the Crip side."

Activists should abandon the celebrities and the easy cause célèbres, and follow Illinois' lead in making a conservative case against the death penalty. We just can't trust the government to not mistakenly execute the innocent, or to not allow considerations outside of the law to influence who lives and who dies. Preserving capital punishment doesn't make us crypto-fascists or herald the march of executioners in black cloaks, but it corrodes our moral authority. Death isn't a punishment—it is an existential sentence. Imposing it forces the state to cross a dangerous line from legal into metaphysical justice.