‘Happy Birthday, Clarence!’ (Not that it matters that he was killed less than an hour after his birthday.)
Clarence Ray Allen wasn not a nice man. He was sent to prison for having his son’s 17-year-old girlfriend killed because he was afraid she would tell police about a grocery store robbery he committed. In 1982 he was sentenced to die for hiring a hit man who killed a witness and two bystanders. I’m opposed to capital punishment, but I can’t cry for this guy.
But. Allen was legally blind, deaf, had diabetes, and was confined to a wheelchair. In September he suffered a near-fatal heart attack. And he was 76 years old, the oldest person executed in California and the second-oldest prisoner executed in the U.S. after a 77-year-old was executed in Mississippi last month.
Was this guy a threat to society? What purpose was served by executing a blind, deaf cripple? Only revenge. Citizens of California are no safer today than the were yesterday because of this guy’s execution.
Saying that the blind, or deaf, or crippled don’t pose a threat to society is stating that they have a diminished capacity, capability, or use when going about their daily lives. This sort of attitude was routinely used in the past to deny them housing and employment.
Equal rights and equal access in society necessarily entails equal responsibilities as well.
If you want to make a case against the death penalty, a case can be made against it on its merits. I don’t think making a case against it based on a discriminatory policy against the disabled would convince me.
We agree on this. The “poster child” strategy of opposing the death penalty is just stupid. The strategy should be on convincing people such as yourself that the death penalty is, in all cases, morally wrong. It may be slower, with more fits and starts, but in the long run, it is the only strategy that will win, and more importantly, the only strategy that will ensure the battle stays won.
I have to agree here, mostly. That is, if one is going to have a death penalty, it must be carried out without prejudice. The fact that the executee was an “old blind cripple” doesn’t and shouldn’t have anything to do with it. After all, executions aren’t for the good of the person being executed. I have a very “Law & Order” mentality when it comes to this.
That having been said, I do oppose the death penalty on moral grounds and believe it should be eliminated altogether. Partly because of the ever-present fear of wrongful conviction, and partly because I do not believe it is our place, as a society, to decide who should die. But that’s just me.
I disagree. The proper strategy is to focus on people’s skepticism regarding the accuracy of the legal system. Hammer away on the idea that if you’re going to give someone a permanent, unfixable punishment like death that the system needs to be 100% accurate. I think that most people can get behind that, even if they feel that there are some crimes worthy of the death penalty.
Ailments like this will probably affect near every death row inmate should the period between their sentencing and day of reckoning be stretched out long enough. This may speak more to the duration he was on DR and the length of the appeals process, about 26 years for this case if I remember correctly, than to any twisted desires of revenge against the infirmed.
The problem with that, as I see it, is that someday science or the court system will make changes that those people believe makes the death penalty 100% accurate. Then they will be right behind the death penalty again. It’s not a permanent solution.
Was society safe from him because he was in prison? Let’s not forget that he wasn’t being executed because he murdered a seventeen year old girl - he was being executed because he ordered three witnesses in that case killed while he was in prison. Those three people were certainly not safe just because Allen was in jail.
Beside reflecting on what was said above, sentencing based on merits regardless, I’m not sure I was trying to make a point more than just acknowledging the fact that delays bring with them a new crop of issues. It’s no different than when a criminal escapes capture for a number of years and then’s finally caught. What then? Should sentencing reflect his crime regardless of his/her physical condition or should that be considered? Contrary to having an answer, I think it’s an interesting question.
Having the restrictions he did would not have made him harmless.
I read a book awhile ago that was the memoirs of a forensic anthropologist. In it he told about one case he investigated in which a seemingly feeble, 85 year old man had shot to death, and then dumped the body of his son-in-law in his septic tank.
I think your emotions are misplaced. Here’s the problem, quoting from Wikipedia (bolding mine):
It took 23 plus years to carry out the sentence. That’s what you should be pissed about, amigo. Had this execution been carried out in a timely fashion like it was supposed to be, we wouldn’t be having this discussion today.
That’s fine. I would have no problem with the DP if the legal system was 100% accurate. But I suspect that 100% accuracy is a long, long ways off and there’s plenty of time to change people’s attitude as to the morality of the DP during that span if you’re looking for a permanent solution.
What I’m saying is this: He was locked up for 23 years. He was not a threat to society. If he has been neutralised as a threat, then what’s the point of killing him? What purpose does it serve? That it took so long to kill him only points to the effectiveness of incarceration instead of execution.