Posted on 01/11/2006 7:18:47 PM PST by Former Military Chick
A Native American death row inmate in California with Oklahoma roots has had a stay of execution request denied. That means that barring a reprieve from a higher court or from California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clarence Ray Allen will die later this month.
Allen, 75, says his mother is part Choctaw and his father is part Cherokee. He was born in Blair, Oklahoma. The 75-year-old is imprisoned for a series of crimes that resulted in the deaths of multiple people.
In their appeal, Allen’s lawyers said their client is elderly and afflicted with health problems including diabetes, and that executing him would be cruel and unusual punishment that is not consistent with “civilized behavior.” Allen also recently suffered a stroke and is now confined to a wheelchair.
Allen received a sentence of life in prison in 1974 after he ordered the slaying of his son’s girlfriend because he believed she had told police about a burglary he carried out. Eight years later he commissioned a hit man he met in prison to kill the witnesses in the 1974 case. The hit man, Billy Ray Hamilton, killed one of the witnesses, along with two other people unrelated to the case.
Hamilton was arrested a short time later and implicated Allen. Allen was sentenced to death.
“Evidence of Allen's guilt is overwhelming,” wrote the California Supreme Court in 1987. “Given the nature of his crimes, sentencing him to another life term would achieve none of the traditional purposes underlying punishment. Allen continues to pose a threat to society, indeed to those very persons who testified against him.”
Allen was recently interviewed in his San Quentin cell by Michael Kroll, an anti-death penalty advocate. Kroll reported that Allen wears an “abalone shell necklace strung with blue beads given to him by Indian inmates.”
During the interview Allen spoke about growing up in Oklahoma and performing the Eagle Bone Whistle Dance at the age of six.
"Everybody who knows me calls me Running Bear," Allen told Kroll. "It's the name my mother gave me, Yea-Nu-Ai-Dasi."
Even though several courts have affirmed Allen’s guilt, he maintains his innocence.
"I'm terribly sorry for all that happened,” he said. “But I can never express remorse for this crime because I didn't do it. I'm remorseful about many things, but not for a crime I didn't commit. I'm so sorry it all happened. I hope to meet the victims in the afterlife and explain to them I never plotted to harm them and I never wanted them to be harmed."
He also told Kroll that he was tired of prison and ready to die.
"Being in here is like living in hell. It's time to go to a better place. If it comes to that, the last words I'll speak is an old Indian saying, Hok-Ah-Ei, it's a good day to die,” he said.
The scheduled execution has reignited another debate over capital punishment just weeks after gang leader Stanley Williams was put to death.
“If ever there were a case that reduces capital punishment to its essence, this is it. Ray Allen lost his liberty and his future 32 years ago. We can’t deprive him of his ability to communicate; his sight and hearing are gone. We can’t take his mobility, that’s gone too. Good health? Gone, swept away by diabetes and hypertension,” wrote Rick Wise.
Prosecutors in the case, however, said Allen "deserves to die for his monstrous crimes."
You can reach Sam Lewin at sam@okit.com
We also do not have the Native American's asking for his life to be spared.
Have to say, this guy really is batting 0. Nobody seems to think his life is worth saving. Yet, if he were black it would be a whole different issue.
Sucks to know how twisted folks can be over their views.
Personally, he did the crime now he must pay for it, in this case it is his life. I am at least consistent.
What the hell is the excuse of all the other's out there. Not a peep.
PING
Well this is suppose to be the leading publication on Native American issues. I suppose they do not think this guy's life is worth saving either.
In fairness I do not know where the editorial board sits on the death penalty but there is nobody on this guys' side.
Man I bet he wishes he were black right about now?
Or trying to put in a Wal Mart. Or a union worker.
Poor guy. I suspect even writing Children's Books that "sell" over 50 copies can't get him any attention.
Well, I am going to see if Farrel shows up. Just to see if that has-been is at least consistent.
"We do not have the likes of the Hollywood elite asking to spare his life."
Perhaps he didn't kill enough people.
What does this guy's race have to do with his evil deeds and the price he will pay for them?
I'm part Choctaw.... and I can't repeat the names my Mother used to give me. :)
Seriously tho... this guy obviously doesn't fit the agenda for the anti-death penalty crowd.
"Native American..."
So what?
The guys race doesnt have anything to do with his evil dees and the price he pays.
FMC is referring to the habit of Hollywood elite and Farrell to only appear in objection to an execution when the Executee is black.
-----I agree with you 100%. You said exactly what I was thinking!
So long, Running Bear.
Twenty-five years ago would have worked too, but if today is all you have, today will have to do.
"Native American . . ." So What?"
Mr. Blair is Choctaw/Cherokee. Traditionally among the Choctaw, a man who took the life of another in any way other than an absolute complete accident had his own life forfeited. He was not shackled and chained. He was free to remain at large within the community and get his affairs in order, in a time frame sometimes measured in months.
At an appointed time, he would show up with any loved ones and other respected elders at the community center. He would calmly walk to the center, say a few words and stand still while a relative, usually a nephew or cousin walked up and shot him point-blank in the heart.
A civilized way to handle the affair if you ask me. Mr. Blair should be so true.
That's what "So What?"
Tyson
Cushing, Oklahoma
(Choctaw)
The ugly saga starts in 1974. Allen owned a security company. According to court documents, he enlisted the help of his son Roger and two employees to rob Fran's Market, a store east of Fresno owned by the Schletewitz family, whom Allen had known for years.
Roger Allen invited the Schletewitz son, Bryon, to a party. While Bryon was swimming, someone took his keys. The Allen gang then robbed the store. Later, Roger's 17-year-old girlfriend, Mary Sue Kitts, confessed to Bryon that she helped cash money orders stolen from the market. Bryon confronted Roger Allen, and also confirmed that Kitts had told him what happened.
Clarence Ray Allen then ordered that Kitts be murdered. Between threatening phone calls from Allen, an accomplice strangled the poor girl. When Bryon learned Kitts was missing, he went to authorities.
After a 1977 trial, a jury convicted Clarence Ray Allen of burglary, conspiracy and first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life without parole.
In Folsom State Prison, Allen cooked up a scheme to kill the witnesses who testified against him so that he could appeal his conviction, and then be freed because any witnesses were dead -- or scared into silence. After Allen's buddy, Billy Ray Hamilton, was paroled, Allen's other son supplied Hamilton with guns and ammo.
Accompanied by a girlfriend, Hamilton visited Fran's Market, brandished a sawed-off shotgun and led Bryon and other employees into the stockroom as he searched for a safe. As the Fresno Bee reported, Hamilton shot Bryon to death. He killed Douglas White, 18. Then he shot a crying Josephine Rocha, 17, through the heart, lung and stomach.
"When you hear the details, it's hard," Teresa Daniele, Rocha's big sister, told me over the phone. Some 25 years later, "it's still very raw."
Hamilton also shot a 17-year-old clerk, who was left for dead but miraculously survived, and a neighbor who heard the shotgun blasts and went to investigate. Hamilton shot the neighbor, who then shot Hamilton.
Days later, a wounded Hamilton was arrested while robbing a liquor store. Police found a list of names and information on eight people who had testified against Allen, including Bryon Schletewitz and his father, Ray Schletewitz.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/20/EDG46FQCEN1.DTL
This is all well and good, but why is Ted Kennedy writing a children's book?
What does this creep's indian ancestry have to do with the cold blooded killing of people and his well-deserved sentence of death? If that's they way he wants it, well, then...go to hell, Chief.
Good riddance!
The guy has finally said something that makes me feel (a little) sorry for him because that is extremely lame. Maybe we can get Ward Churchill to switch places with him 'ala Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. Ward should want to help a real Native American out of a jam, no?
The objectionable racial politics that made Tookie's execution a cause celeb and Mr Allen's death a nonevent are disgraceful. Its very sad that in 2006 we still have to deal with the same racial BS we were trying to overcome in 1965. The left doesn't bother with even platitudes about equality and justice anymore. When "separate but equal" is the defacto policy of the NAACP we have reached a sad day indeed.
Death penalty opponents undermine their cause by not opposing every execution with the same reasoned set of arguments. Tell me "we lower ourselves to thier level" and all that jazz and at least I'll respect your position. They need to stop turning certain "politically correct" murders into saints while ignoring people that don't tug the liberal heart strings. Anyone who want to Free Mumia! because he is a "political prisoner" has forfeited the right to be taken seriously.
Jessie Jackson played a smallish roll in Le Affair de Tookie because there was no one to shake down for $$$. He only put in a Special Guest Appearance in the last day or two when tons of free publicity was to be had.
I have no idea if race has anything to do with it, but, I have to tell you, it is mighty odd that the liberal left Hollywood folks have shown NO interest in this man's life. They are the ones' always yelling how wrong the death penalty is. FINE, but shouldn't they be out there for each person about to face their ultimate punishment.
Obviously they do not care about this man. Perhaps it is about his inability not to have a book out? That he wasn't a former gang member. That he ordered the murder's verses committing the murder's.
I actually wrote an essay (vanity) about this Tookie's fan club are fair weather death penalty foes? and it was picked up by a left leaning black paper where I used it to ask the same question where are those defending this man's life.
Evidently there is something that causes this man to NOT have any defender's. So in reality those opposed to the death penalty, who say it is not for us to choose who lives and dies has essentially said this man's life is worth nothing and have done nothing on his behalf. I would say they are putting the needle in his arm.
Finally what caught my eye, that this article was printed in a Native American publication. Yet, I do not see where they stand on the DP. I cannot find anyone defending his life in anything I have read on their website.
If "Running Bear" does try his hand at writing that will make three members of the elite children's author + heartless killer club: Tookie, Clarence Ray Allen, and Ted Kennedy.
The man's crimes were horrible. But why did it take so long to execute him? Now at age 75, odds are, he won't be with us much longer, anyway. God will take him home on His own good time.
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