Legalized killing requires official justifications. The execution of Clarence Ray Allen early Tuesday morning was no exception.
A prosecutor explained that “he masterminded the murders of three innocent young people and conspired to attack the heart of our criminal justice system.” And California’s governor was stern when he denied a clemency request for the 76-year-old prisoner.
“The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury’s punishment,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said. Allen had been convicted of enlisting a fellow prisoner to kill witnesses against him in 1980.
On Monday, according to unnamed “officials” cited in a San Francisco Chronicle account, the condemned man “ordered a final meal of buffalo steak, Kentucky Fried Chicken, sugar-free pecan pie, sugar-free black walnut ice cream and whole milk.”
Allen “was blind and mostly deaf, suffered from diabetes and had a nearly fatal heart attack in September only to be revived and returned to death row,” the Associated Press recounted. His last breath would be determined by the state’s timetable…
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