Posted on 01/15/2006 8:07:11 AM PST by SmithL
BEFORE YOU ASK, I'll answer your questions:
Why not sentence convicted murderers to life without parole, so that they'll be locked up where they can't hurt anyone else?
Clarence Ray Allen, who is scheduled for execution at San Quentin State Prison on Tuesday, is living proof that a convicted killer can snuff out the lives of innocent people from behind bars. In 1977, Allen began serving a life sentence for the murder of his son's 17-year-old girlfriend -- her punishment for confessing to a victim robbed by the Allen gang. Allen then concocted a scheme he thought would set him free -- file an appeal, kill the witnesses, then walk after a re-trial with no witnesses to testify against him.
Toward that end, Allen provided fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton with a list of eight names of witnesses before Hamilton was paroled. In 1980, Hamilton murdered Bryon Schletewitz, 27, an Allen witness, along with two innocent teenagers (Josephine Rocha and Douglas White) who worked at the Schletewitz family store, which the Allen gang had robbed. Authorities later found the list of Allen witnesses and letters Allen sent to a son about his plan.
Juries sentenced Allen and Hamilton to death, and issued life sentences for two accomplices. "Given the nature of Allen's crimes," U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote in a ruling that denied an Allen appeal, "sentencing him to another life term would achieve none of the traditional purposes underlying punishment: incapacitation, deterrence, retribution or rehabilitation."
Why bother executing a frail old man?
Allen is an old man today because he was no kid -- he was 50 -- when he ordered the murder of eight witnesses. Then he gamed the legal system so successfully that he bought himself more than two decades on Death Row.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Don't try logic on the death penalty opponents.
One thing is certain:
If the criminal is dead, he will never again hurt anyone!
It doesn't help Allen supporters that this week DNA tests conducted to exonerate rapist/murderer Roger K. Coleman of Virginia -- who proclaimed "An innocent man is being murdered tonight" before his execution 13 years ago -- proved that Coleman was indeed guilty.
Certainly didn't hear much about this from the Old Media.
Yeah, you can bet if the exact opposite was true, it would have been the top headline story everywhere.
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