Posted on 01/06/2006 7:19:10 AM PST by Former Military Chick
While warden of San Quentin for 10 years, I supervised reactivation of the gas chamber and California's first two executions in the modern era. I unhesitatingly served Clarence Ray Allen, who is scheduled to die Jan. 17, with his first death warrant for ordering three murders from his prison cell in 1980. I firmly believe that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment and that the state of California has the right to enforce its criminal laws. But I also believe it must be administered in accordance with civilized standards of decency to maintain its integrity. Because the execution of Allen would now be inhumane and violate those standards, I urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to grant clemency in this extraordinary case.
When I visited Allen in December and reviewed his prison file, I found a man who presents absolutely no risk to prison staff or public safety. Legally blind, hard of hearing and of frail voice, he cannot even stand up by himself. He needs a walker to move around within his cell and a wheelchair everywhere else. In the glassed visiting cubicle where I met with him, he was truly a pathetic sight: aged, downcast, oblivious to his surroundings, cuffed to his wheelchair and utterly defeated.
Furthermore, Allen has been virtually a model prisoner on Death Row in the nearly quarter century he has been confined there. During my tenure, he was known as a compliant and trouble-free inmate on the row, and his subsequent record upholds that reputation. Staff interactions with him, which I observed both as warden and more recently, have always been of mutual courtesy and respect. No inmate can fake such good behavior for so many years.
Allen's capital crimes were repugnant, but they bear little on the assessment of the threat he poses.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
If the above is true, than he would have taken his punishment like a man. That is what making peace means to me. Balancing the books, making amends. A jury spoke. He allowed the appeals process to go on and on. It is his doing, with his lawyer's that he has been on death row this long.
It is now time to pay for his crimes. The lives he took deserve justice.
I also wrote a vanity on this should anyone be interested in checking it out:
It would be a travesty if this creep is allowed to die peacefully.
I long ago came to the conclusion that what the Leftists worship is not God.
Your past tense does not inspire confidence. And who in the hell picked a wus like you to be warden of San Quentin??? I doubt you could effectively run a daycare.
They shoot horses don't they? Let's just call this a therapeutic execution, the abortion lovers will then approve. Oh wait, I forgot. It's only the innocent they don't mind offing. Forget it, won't work.
PING
The latest in the Allen saga.
I say beat him to death with one of those blind man canes
No threat????? Excuse me????
"his first death warrant for ordering three murders from his prison cell in 1980."
Talk about missing the boat.
Maybe they care the most for those who are most like themselves. They seem unable to identify with the innocent. Maybe they don't like to identify with the "weak".
"his first death warrant for ordering three murders from his prison cell in 1980"
Oh, yeah, I feel safe with these guys in jail for life.... </sarc>
Specious argument in the second phrase; his crimes were repugnant and that is the reason he should face the music.
Will he become a hero now? On BET last night they were running a montage of famous black people that had passed away in the last year. Richard Pryor, Rosa Parks and of course Tookie.
Why do they even bother with an argument?
Those idiots at the SFC think EVERYBODY on Death Row ought to be spared, regardless of why there there or their current physical and mental status.
A very well written vanity, indeed. I don't believe I could have said it better myself.
Funny, the transparent hypocrisy of the left. They rally around the cause celebre of the day, however undeserving.
I have no sympathy for this POS either. I would hope that someone who has taken people's lives in the manner this man has, would be old and broken and handcuffed to a wheelchair.
I would obviously feel differently if the crime was a crime of passion where someone slugged someone in the heat of battle and they ended up dying as a result. But this Allen guy did what he did in a cold, calculating way. He should be sitting in a prison issue Depends handcuffed to his chair, regretting what he has come to.
Why do these guys always have three names?
funny, i never thought of the death penalty as taking care of a threat...
[i]I found a man who presents absolutely no risk to prison staff or public safety[/i]
i have always thought of it as a punishment for a specific crime - the man ordered three murders from his prison cell, something that even as a blind, decrepit old man he could still do. the death penalty is just that - punishment for those crimes.
"No threat????? Excuse me????
"his first death warrant for ordering three murders from his prison cell in 1980."
Amazing isn't it? The inability of so many formerly responsible people to think logically makes me suspect there is an epidemic of mass insanity.
Save time and money; just hook a couple of high voltage cables up to his wheelchair and flip the switch.
The only real question is whether there is certainty that he committed the crime.
A society without a death penalty is a society that sends the message "life is cheap."
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