Allen loses another court bid to stay alive

AP ^ | 1/15/6 | DAVID KRAVETS

[SmithL]

San Francisco -- Clarence Ray Allen moved a step closer to death late Sunday when a federal appeals court here dismissed one of his final appeals.

Allen, who turns 76 on Monday, would become California's oldest condemned inmate executed on Tuesday morning following the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision dismissing one of his final legal options.

Attorneys for Allen, on death row for ordering the hits of three people at a Fresno market in 1980, claimed executing him would be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual because of his age and health problems.

The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled against Allen "because he has not demonstrated substantial grounds upon which relief may be granted."

Allen is also asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the execution under the same legal theory. Allen is scheduled to be injected at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday at San Quentin State Prison.

Allen is legally blind, nearly deaf, suffered a heart attack in September and uses a wheelchair.

[goldstategop]

The ultra liberal Nine Circus didn't see any merit in his petition. And the Supremes will concur. I'm optimistic about the logjam on executions in California coming to an end. Quite a number of Death Row inmates have exhausted their appeals and the execution chamber is going to be pretty busy. Its about time.

(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.")

[08morganl]

Cruel and unusual? How is that creul and unusual. He will feel no pain. The thing that I think is creul and unusual is to have him wait all that time, knowing that he is going to be executed, and to just have to endure the long drawn out process. He probably just wants the whole thing to be over with.

There was an almost identical case to this back sometime around 1990 with a guy named Robert Alton Harris. He stole a car to rob a bank with two teenagers in it, and shot them both. He was put into the gas chamber twice and they were about to execute him when they got the call to stop on some liberal technicality. I thought that maybe Claifornia and the 9th might have learned from that. Obviously not.

[KeyLargo]

"At least the mainstream media published a detailed story about the crime and the victims."

I was surprised that the SF Chronicle would have published the story at all!