By the time that you read this, the man pictured below will be dead:

Stan "Tookie" Williams was a bad guy. No one disputes that. He helped to found the Crips, one of the worst street gangs in modern history. Twenty-five years ago he was convicted on four murder counts and sentenced to death.

And then something happened. As the years went by, Williams began to re-evaluate his actions. For the past dozen years, Williams has worked as an anti-gang activist, brokering peace between rival gangs in L.A. and writing books for children and adults decrying the gangster lifestyle. For his work to stem the flow of gang violence, he's been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel peace prize.

Was Williams a changed man or was he just hoping that his good deeds would win him a stay of execution? We can't know that. What we can know is that he did these good deeds, and now those deeds are done.

Perhaps it would have helped if he had admitted his guilt in the four murders he was convicted of. He was probably afraid that those kinds of admissions would ruin his efforts to appeal. Or perhaps we WAS innocent of those crimes. Again, we can't know that.

Could a few years of good works, no matter how sincere, really make up for a lifetime of bad? Probably not. Not on Earth, at least.

But why silence a voice of hope, no matter what it's source?

Is this justice? Or just cold vengeance?

But, then, really, what does any of it matter? If the past few years have taught us anything, they have taught us how fragile and fleeting life is.

An act of terror. An act of God. And thousands, or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands are dead. People die everyday in sudden and unexpected ways.

And Stan Williams got a dozen years to do good and to inspire other people to do good. He's done more good in this past decade than most will do in their entire lives.

And though he's gone, his words and his life are still here to challenge us.

Shakespeare writes, "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones."

We cannot forget the dark deeds that Williams is responsible for, but let's not forget the good that he has done, either.

The work continues.