From the article you linked:

Williams has maintained that he is innocent. His plea for clemency was based on his transformation while in prison for almost a quarter-century. He and his supporters argue that he has changed his life since his gang days, writing children’s books and warning youths about the perils of the gangster life.

If he’s maintaining his innocence, what is it he claims to have transformed? Was the transformation just something he felt he needed to go through since he was in prison anyway?

The presence of Jamie Foxx and company hardly lend legitimacy to his claims, but it’s upsetting to know that in the next few months, during which a screenplay doubtless will be written, Tookie will undergo yet another false transformation into a messianic figure. Yet what makes heroic deaths poignant is the higher principle being preserved. What on earth is Tookie’s higher principle?