Stanley 'Tookie' Williams has urged young people to shun street violence and written children's books while in prison, and is due to die by lethal injection early Tuesday at San Quentin prison near San Francisco.
His case has sparked protests and pleas for his life to be spared from supporters who say the 51-year-old is a changed man, including celebrities like Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, rapper Snoop Doggie Dogg and civil rights leader the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
'We must kill the idea of killing as a solution. The eyes of the world are upon us,' Jackson told a news conference at his Chicago headquarters Saturday, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Schwarzenegger, who can commute the Crips gang co-founder's sentence to life in prison, said he faces a difficult decision.
Los Angeles City Council appealed to city residents to stay calm, if Williams is executed. Authorities fear rioting, especially in the South Central neighbourhood where blacks rose up in 1965 and 1992, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
Schwarzenegger on Thursday heard 11th-hour appeals from lawyers for Williams and from prosecutors, who oppose clemency. As governor, the former 'Terminator' movie star has rejected clemency appeals for two other death row inmates.
California's supreme court refused on December 1 to stay Williams' execution, leaving his fate in the Austrian-born politician's hands.
Williams was convicted of murdering four people in two robberies in 1979. He has expressed regret for being a gang leader in the 1970s, but denies taking part in the robberies.
He founded the Crips street gang in Los Angeles in 1971. Hundreds of people were killed in urban warfare between them and the rival Bloods and Los Angeles drug dealers.
