Photogrrlz
01-04-2006, 08:17 PM
Cruel and unusual my *** :mad:
State Execution Of California Elderly Man Draws Controversy
If California puts condemned killer Clarence Ray Allen to death Jan. 17, it will be a very different kind of execution.
Allen will be rolled in a wheelchair to the door of San Quentin State Prison's drab green execution chamber, where prison guards will essentially have to lift him onto a gurney. Allen, legally blind, is unlikely to be able to make out much of what will be happening around him as he receives a lethal dose of drugs, according to court documents.
At 76, he will be the oldest inmate ever executed in California and the second-oldest in U.S. history.
To Allen's lawyers and death penalty opponents, the execution of a feeble old man would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. And Allen's case is likely to foreshadow an increasingly common occurrence for California, where more and more graying murderers on the nation's largest death row could be executed decades after their crimes.
``What societal interests are going to be furthered if the execution takes place under this set of circumstances?'' asked Annette Carnegie, one of Allen's lawyers. ``There is something horribly wrong with that picture.''
But the other side to Allen's story is not so sympathetic. He has been convicted of ordering four murders in his lifetime and is on death row for a spree of violence in the Central Valley in the 1970s and early 1980s that still sends shudders through law enforcement and his victims' families.
To prosecutors and death penalty supporters, Allen has had the benefit of 23 years of appeals in the courts and, regardless of his age and medical condition, must now pay the price for his crimes.
``I have no sympathy for him,'' said Tricia Pendergrass, whose brother, Bryon Schletewitz, was one of Allen's murder victims. ``He was allowed to grow old. He chose his life.''
With weeks to go before the scheduled execution, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the courts are wrestling with Allen's argument that his age and deteriorating medical condition are reasons for a reprieve. Allen has petitioned Schwarzenegger for clemency, and at the same time asked the California Supreme Court to rule that executing him would be unconstitutional.
Schwarzenegger said Friday he would not hold a public clemency hearing for Allen, but he could hold a private clemency hearing, as he did for Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed last month. Schwarzenegger has denied all three clemency requests he's received from death row inmates.
Allen would be the 13th inmate executed since California restored the death penalty in 1978. But given the demographics of the state's death row, legal experts predict his argument to be spared might be replicated in the coming years.
Five of the state's nearly 650 condemned killers are over 70. There are 34 who are 60 to 69, and 138 who are 50 to 59, according to state Department of Corrections data. Death penalty appeals typically take 20 years in California.
The graying of death rows is also evident on a national level. From 1990 to 2000, nine inmates older than 60 were executed in the United States, according to Death Penalty Information Center data. In the past five years, 18 over-60 inmates have been executed, including 77-year-old Mississippi hit man John Nixon Sr. several weeks ago.
Nevertheless, experts say arguments like Allen's -- that he is too old and sick to be executed -- are a long shot, particularly when governors have been reluctant to grant clemency to death row inmates for reasons other than possible innocence.
``I'd be stunned,'' said Austin Sarat, an Amherst College of Law professor and author of a recent book on clemency in death penalty cases. ``I can't see governors saying people are too old to be executed.''
In papers filed with Schwarzenegger, Allen's lawyers say he isn't just old. He is still recuperating from a major heart attack in September that they maintain requires surgery. Diabetes has damaged other organs and left him legally blind and confined to a wheelchair. His lawyers also argue that San Quentin's inadequate medical care, the subject of a federal lawsuit, has contributed to his condition.
Allen has received support from former San Quentin warden Daniel Vasquez, who visited the inmate several weeks ago and told Schwarzenegger in a letter that executing him would be ``shameful.'' Former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin, who wrote a 1986 ruling upholding Allen's death sentence, also urged the governor to grant clemency, saying the execution would ``violate societal standards of decency.''
These arguments gall death penalty supporters, who say Allen's age and medical condition are merely a byproduct of delays in the system that have allowed him to live so long.
Allen was sentenced to die in 1982. He was already in Folsom prison for murder when he arranged the killings of witnesses who had helped put him behind bars. His first murder conviction had been for ordering the murder of 17-year-old Mary Sue Kitts, who had revealed his role in a Fresno burglary.
While at Folsom, Allen recruited fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton to carry out the murders. On Sept. 5, 1980, Hamilton, just released from prison, went to Fran's Market in Fresno in search of one of the witnesses against Allen, Schletewitz, 27, whose father owned the store. He killed him with a shotgun, along with two bystanders, Douglas White, 18, and Josephine Rocha, 17.
When Hamilton was arrested, Allen was quickly linked to the scheme. Hamilton also is on death row for the killings.
Despite expressing concern that Allen's lawyer provided poor representation, the courts have repeatedly rejected his appeals. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming the death sentence, remarked: ``If the death penalty is to serve any purpose at all, it is to prevent the very sort of murderous conduct for which Allen was convicted.''
When Allen was sentenced to death he was 52. Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell, who prosecuted the case two decades ago, said last week that the system would fail its mission to protect witnesses if Allen isn't executed for his murder plots.
Meanwhile, Allen has outlived Schletewitz's parents, Fran, who died in 2002, and Ray, who died last year. The couple had hoped to see Allen executed, and campaigned for years to speed up the state's death penalty process.
``Having this looming over you all these years, it's always a part of you,'' said Pendergrass, who is now 55 and visited her family's store last week for the first time since her brother's murder. ``He can still communicate, and that's all he needed to do 25 years ago. He's still a danger as long as he can communicate.''
State Execution Of California Elderly Man Draws Controversy
If California puts condemned killer Clarence Ray Allen to death Jan. 17, it will be a very different kind of execution.
Allen will be rolled in a wheelchair to the door of San Quentin State Prison's drab green execution chamber, where prison guards will essentially have to lift him onto a gurney. Allen, legally blind, is unlikely to be able to make out much of what will be happening around him as he receives a lethal dose of drugs, according to court documents.
At 76, he will be the oldest inmate ever executed in California and the second-oldest in U.S. history.
To Allen's lawyers and death penalty opponents, the execution of a feeble old man would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. And Allen's case is likely to foreshadow an increasingly common occurrence for California, where more and more graying murderers on the nation's largest death row could be executed decades after their crimes.
``What societal interests are going to be furthered if the execution takes place under this set of circumstances?'' asked Annette Carnegie, one of Allen's lawyers. ``There is something horribly wrong with that picture.''
But the other side to Allen's story is not so sympathetic. He has been convicted of ordering four murders in his lifetime and is on death row for a spree of violence in the Central Valley in the 1970s and early 1980s that still sends shudders through law enforcement and his victims' families.
To prosecutors and death penalty supporters, Allen has had the benefit of 23 years of appeals in the courts and, regardless of his age and medical condition, must now pay the price for his crimes.
``I have no sympathy for him,'' said Tricia Pendergrass, whose brother, Bryon Schletewitz, was one of Allen's murder victims. ``He was allowed to grow old. He chose his life.''
With weeks to go before the scheduled execution, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the courts are wrestling with Allen's argument that his age and deteriorating medical condition are reasons for a reprieve. Allen has petitioned Schwarzenegger for clemency, and at the same time asked the California Supreme Court to rule that executing him would be unconstitutional.
Schwarzenegger said Friday he would not hold a public clemency hearing for Allen, but he could hold a private clemency hearing, as he did for Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed last month. Schwarzenegger has denied all three clemency requests he's received from death row inmates.
Allen would be the 13th inmate executed since California restored the death penalty in 1978. But given the demographics of the state's death row, legal experts predict his argument to be spared might be replicated in the coming years.
Five of the state's nearly 650 condemned killers are over 70. There are 34 who are 60 to 69, and 138 who are 50 to 59, according to state Department of Corrections data. Death penalty appeals typically take 20 years in California.
The graying of death rows is also evident on a national level. From 1990 to 2000, nine inmates older than 60 were executed in the United States, according to Death Penalty Information Center data. In the past five years, 18 over-60 inmates have been executed, including 77-year-old Mississippi hit man John Nixon Sr. several weeks ago.
Nevertheless, experts say arguments like Allen's -- that he is too old and sick to be executed -- are a long shot, particularly when governors have been reluctant to grant clemency to death row inmates for reasons other than possible innocence.
``I'd be stunned,'' said Austin Sarat, an Amherst College of Law professor and author of a recent book on clemency in death penalty cases. ``I can't see governors saying people are too old to be executed.''
In papers filed with Schwarzenegger, Allen's lawyers say he isn't just old. He is still recuperating from a major heart attack in September that they maintain requires surgery. Diabetes has damaged other organs and left him legally blind and confined to a wheelchair. His lawyers also argue that San Quentin's inadequate medical care, the subject of a federal lawsuit, has contributed to his condition.
Allen has received support from former San Quentin warden Daniel Vasquez, who visited the inmate several weeks ago and told Schwarzenegger in a letter that executing him would be ``shameful.'' Former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin, who wrote a 1986 ruling upholding Allen's death sentence, also urged the governor to grant clemency, saying the execution would ``violate societal standards of decency.''
These arguments gall death penalty supporters, who say Allen's age and medical condition are merely a byproduct of delays in the system that have allowed him to live so long.
Allen was sentenced to die in 1982. He was already in Folsom prison for murder when he arranged the killings of witnesses who had helped put him behind bars. His first murder conviction had been for ordering the murder of 17-year-old Mary Sue Kitts, who had revealed his role in a Fresno burglary.
While at Folsom, Allen recruited fellow inmate Billy Ray Hamilton to carry out the murders. On Sept. 5, 1980, Hamilton, just released from prison, went to Fran's Market in Fresno in search of one of the witnesses against Allen, Schletewitz, 27, whose father owned the store. He killed him with a shotgun, along with two bystanders, Douglas White, 18, and Josephine Rocha, 17.
When Hamilton was arrested, Allen was quickly linked to the scheme. Hamilton also is on death row for the killings.
Despite expressing concern that Allen's lawyer provided poor representation, the courts have repeatedly rejected his appeals. Last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming the death sentence, remarked: ``If the death penalty is to serve any purpose at all, it is to prevent the very sort of murderous conduct for which Allen was convicted.''
When Allen was sentenced to death he was 52. Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell, who prosecuted the case two decades ago, said last week that the system would fail its mission to protect witnesses if Allen isn't executed for his murder plots.
Meanwhile, Allen has outlived Schletewitz's parents, Fran, who died in 2002, and Ray, who died last year. The couple had hoped to see Allen executed, and campaigned for years to speed up the state's death penalty process.
``Having this looming over you all these years, it's always a part of you,'' said Pendergrass, who is now 55 and visited her family's store last week for the first time since her brother's murder. ``He can still communicate, and that's all he needed to do 25 years ago. He's still a danger as long as he can communicate.''