Posted on 12/14/2005 7:41:04 AM PST by SmithL
Clarence Ray Allen, the next inmate scheduled to die in San Quentin State Prison's execution chamber, may pose a quandary as vexing for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Stanley Tookie Williams.
Allen, who has spent more than a quarter-century on Death Row, is slated to die by lethal injection Jan. 17. He would be the oldest and most infirm prisoner executed in the United States since the death penalty was restored in 1977, according to his lawyers.
Allen, who turns 76 on Jan. 16, uses a wheelchair. An advanced case of diabetes has left him legally blind. He suffered a heart attack Sept. 2.
His lawyers filed a 33-page petition for clemency Tuesday with the governor's office in Sacramento.
"He's the oldest inmate on California's Death Row. ... He's enfeebled," Michael Satris, one of Allen's lawyers, said in an interview. "No prisoner in the state of California has ever been executed at that age.
"It's almost unprecedented worldwide," Satris said. "There hasn't been an execution in this country for more than 50 years of someone as old as Ray Allen."
Several condemned inmates at San Quentin are in their 70s, and more than two dozen are in their 60s.
The state says Allen's deteriorating health is irrelevant.
"He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death, and the law requires that his sentence be carried out regardless of his age or health,"
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Good approach ... "Yeah, it's sad that he's so old and sick, but we promise he won't get a day older!"
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
So this guy is the 'Ward Churchill' of death row inmates? A fake indian?
The only travesties in this case are the crimes committed by this killer, and the fact that it has taken over twenty years for his sentence to be carried out.
Send him to a hospital in the Netherlands. There the staff would quickly determine that a 75-year old blind, diabetic should be euthanized forthwith as a drag on society.
He looks drug and alcohol ravaged. Sad to say it, but execution will end his (self induced) state of pain.
Ten paragraphs into the story, the SFGate reporter finally gets around to mentioning the crimes this POS committed.
Using Liberal 'logic' anyone who is blind, in a wheel chair, or writes children's books has a license to kill. Watch out for that Steven Hawking character!
Mike Farrell might as well just go ahead and buy a condo in the San Quentin neighborhood...Jesse needn't bother, because this guy looks white.
There's no hype to the Allen case. Asner, Farrell, and Jackson won't show up. Lack of television cameras and microphones.
Hmmm, I guess it will be difficult for him to get stated writing childrens books.
My sentiments exactly. When I read "Allen, who has spent more than a quarter-century on Death Row . . ." my first thought was if he was executed sooner he wouldn't have come down with all these infirmities.
Anyway, as others have mentioned, he is white and if sentence is commuted, the usual cast of professional victims will be screaming "RACISM!". The guy is toast, and evidently well deserves it.
Yeah, but Tookie's son is due to hit the streets again soon.
So, he gets to grow old and die, unlike his victims...and not face his punishment?
Unless there is significant reason to believe this man did not commit the crime he was accused of, the sentence needs to be carried out.
No, "wait out the clock" nonsense.
I didn't follow this case. When did CA reinstate capital punishment? Wasn't the death penalty blocked by the popular former Governor "Jerry" Brown? Gee, it's hard to believe that it has been nearly a quarter century since Brown ruled in Sacramento. Isn't Brown giving up the city hall in Oakland too?
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