There are now five condemned men in California who are over 70 and nearly three dozen in their 60s. In contrast, Allen has not displayed any visible public support, and the last appeals court to review his case characterized his crimes as the very type the death penalty was designed to address.īut Allen’s attorneys have raised a question that is likely to recur, with the “graying” of death rows around the country and the concomitant health problems afflicting many elderly inmates: Is it appropriate to execute someone who is old and infirm? Full-page newspaper advertisements and speeches from clergymen, celebrities and activists proclaimed that Williams has redeemed himself through his anti-gang activities. His situation is dramatically different from that of Williams, a co-founder of the Crips gang, who has been the subject of an unusual, highly visible clemency campaign. The Los Angeles Times has Aging, Ill Inmate Is Next in Line for Execution “He prays for that mercy because he is aged and infirm, suffering from chronic diseases that have been aggravated by the grossly inadequate medical treatment he has received at San Quentin and that have left him unable to walk, nearly blind, hard of hearing, and so physically incapacitated that his execution for the purpose of incapacitating him from the commission of further crime is manifestly unnecessary,” his attorney, Michael Satris, wrote to Schwarzenegger.Īlthough Satris also questions Allen’s guilt, the petition presents Schwarzenegger — who has rejected all three petitions for clemency that have come before him — with a far different claim: that physical infirmities are grounds for clemency.Ĭlarence Ray Allen’s crimes are summarized here. N his petition, Allen claims that his physical infirmities, including a recent heart attack, have left him nearly deaf and blind and warrant a reprieve. His hit man killed a witness and two market employees.
In 1980, while serving at Folsom State Prison for arranging the 1974 murder of his son’s girlfriend, Allen ordered the killings of eight witnesses against him in a related market burglary case in Fresno. Arnold Schwarzenegger for clemency Tuesday, a day after the governor rejected a bid for mercy from Stanley Tookie Williams, allowing the Crips co-founder to die by lethal injection.Ĭlarence Ray Allen, 75, said he was too frail to be put to death Jan. The state’s oldest death row convict asked Gov. The Los Angeles Times has Oldest Inmate on Death Row Petitions Gov.