The US of A has sunk to new lows...

[Maury Beniowski]

California executes oldest condemned inmate

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) — California executed its oldest condemned inmate early Tuesday for arranging a triple murder 25 years ago to silence witnesses in another killing. Clarence Ray Allen was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 12:38 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison, less than an hour after his 76th birthday ended at midnight.

Allen — who was legally blind, nearly deaf and in a wheelchair — was the second-oldest put to death nationally — since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.

Allen's heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him and returned him to San Quentin Prison's death row.

Amazing! Instead of letting death take him then, they had to bring him back so they could do the dirty work.

How pathetically barbaric they've become?

 

[therealrex]

What's the problem the guy was a piece of shit mobster its not like he accidentally shot someone holding up a liquor store.

 

[brown sugar]

Sorry Canada will miss Him!!

As an American not only do I take offence...but I got to laugh at YOU!Ding... Dong...a bad guy's dead!! Actually I am sure that you speak only for yourself and not the rest of Canada...They should have let him die when his heart stopped...only to ease the taxpayers who supported this peice...

Brown

 

[muffdiver]

Why let the guy die the way us law abiding citizens would , hell no bring the asshole back he deserves knowing all too well what he did to those witnesses.A slow painfull death should suffice.

 

[tao]

Allen's heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him and returned him to San Quentin Prison's death row.

Amazing! Instead of letting death take him then, they had to bring him back so they could do the dirty work.

if they had let him die in september, would you be here wringing your hands about how a death row inmate's due process was circumvented by the denial of emergency medical treatment?

they did not bring him back so "they could do the dirty work". allen received the same medical treatment that any other prisoner would have received in the same circumstance.

FYI, allen signed a "Do Not Rescusitate Order" after the incident in september.

 

[HeMadeMeDoIt]

Which part of triple murder to silence other killing(s?) are you ok with?

Mayeb Canada should've gone and broken him loose and then housed him with Karla Homolka in a quiet Quebec suburb

 

[wraith]

Allen's heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him and returned him to San Quentin Prison's death row.

Could you imagine the uproar from the liberal, anti-capitol punishment crowd had that happened? They would have made a huge stink that the state was denying the inmate medical care and just letting him die and not being allowed any further appeals or clemency. While in custody a prisoner gets access to necessary health care and medical intervention, that is what he received.

 

[Cock Throppled]

I assume the "new low" was either because he was 76 or because he had health problems. If they had executed him 25 years ago it would have been better all round.

 

[youngninnocent]

As a Canadian

I for one am getting pretty tired of all the America bashing that goes on now a days. Yes the war mongering Bush sucks ass but all of this makes us look bad.

If we "hate" Americans' for being rude, egotistical, self-absorbed and self-righteous how the fuck are we any different when we do nothing but insult Americans' at every chance we get?

I remember a Canada that led by example...Too bad we have become a nation of people that doesn't practice what we preach.

 

[luckydog71]

California executes oldest condemned inmate

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) — California executed its oldest condemned inmate early Tuesday for arranging a triple murder 25 years ago to silence witnesses in another killing. Clarence Ray Allen was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 12:38 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison, less than an hour after his 76th birthday ended at midnight.

Allen — who was legally blind, nearly deaf and in a wheelchair — was the second-oldest put to death nationally — since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.

Allen's heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him and returned him to San Quentin Prison's death row.

Amazing! Instead of letting death take him then, they had to bring him back so they could do the dirty work.

How pathetically barbaric they've become?

Maury, I agree with you we have sunk to a new low. This piece of shit was convicted 25 years ago. He should have been executed 20 years ago. Instead they wait until the fucker has lived his life....more than can be said for his victims.

An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. The guy got 20 years more than he was entitled to.

 

[The Lizard King]

Maury, I agree with you we have sunk to a new low. This piece of shit was convicted 25 years ago. He should have been executed 20 years ago. Instead they wait until the fucker has lived his life....more than can be said for his victims.

No kidding. It probably cost the taxpayers a couple million or so to house, feed, and keep the prick alive all that time.

 

[phukedup1]

While sympathy for Mr. Clarence Ray Allen is unwarranted, one is also hard pressed to sympathize with a judicial system that systematically murders it's own citizens. I see little difference between the actions perpetrated by Mr. Allen and the courts. The judge, jury, and persons who carried out the execution should be next in line if they're going to walk the talk because each and every one of them is just as guilty of murder as Mr. Allen.

Judging by the trend of bloodthirsty postings on this board, I think I know where I'll be able to find some volunteers the next time I'm organizing a lynch mob.

 

[georgebushmoron]

Maury, I agree with you we have sunk to a new low. This piece of shit was convicted 25 years ago. He should have been executed 20 years ago. Instead they wait until the fucker has lived his life....more than can be said for his victims.

An eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. The guy got 20 years more than he was entitled to.

You are quite right on this one LD, he got to live 20 more years than his victims. He should have been dealt his punishment soon after it was pronounced.

... a judicial system that systematically murders it's own citizens. I see little difference between the actions perpetrated by Mr. Allen and the courts.

It is wrong to suppose that the courts are as bloodthirsty as the murderer when there is talk of support for capital punishment. On the contrary, state punishment follows the principles of Justice in executing such criminals, whereas criminals follow no laws when they executed their victims. It is also wrong to suppose that the raison d'etre for capital punishment is to deter further similar crimes, for the statistics do not bear out supporting evidence to that. It is simply enough that true Justice expounds fair and equal treatment for criminals and victims alike, and that would be that a criminal is deserving of the same evil that was visited upon the victim; for without that, there is only denigration for the honor and dignity for the victim(s). Justice should declare that you forfeit your life to the state should you commit such henious crimes.

 

[Maury Beniowski]

Interesting replies...

I never implied whether I was for or against Capital punishment. That is a different debate altogether, one which I do not take sides on. What I was commenting in the last two sentences however, was the barbaric cruelty in bringing someone back from the dead so the State could put him to death. That is so sadistic and inhumane, it defies comprehension. Asserting that reviving the patient is the State's responsibility rings hollow indeed, and should lawfully be a medical decision, so the State's role in ordering a doctor to do so, amounts to playing God - in other words, "you're going to die when we say so". This is a question that the medical community faces on a daily basis, and it uses technological advances, and family concerns as barometers to prolong agony in death. Is this what we have become as a society? Stangely enough, our pet animals fare much better in comparison.

What this ultimately reveals is a society in a dire moral conflict. It leaves the condemned on death row for decades while it ruminates the pros and cons of the question. There is no doubt there is extreme polarization within its electorate, but the politicians who bear the brunt of moral ineptitude and ridicule on the World stage, are left to wring their hands back home, taking sides in public that are for the most part dictated according to the prevalent regional mood, thus avoiding the wrath of their voters, and in doing so, sanctioning the snail pace of putting these souls to rest. By the time the execution occurs, another generation has passed, and most people have forgotten the crimes or the names of the culprits. So, if Capital punishment is a tool for keeping the population in check, they have clearly lost that opportunity by delaying the inevitable.

Little wonder the US ranks near the top of most incarceration statistics.

 

[georgebushmoron]

So, if Capital punishment is a tool for keeping the population in check, they have clearly lost that opportunity by delaying the inevitable.

But no knowledgeable person on this matter believes that capital punishment is any kind of deterrent ("for keeping the population in check"). Delaying the inevitable was most likely the unintended consequence of bureaucracy in the political/legal world.

That is so sadistic and inhumane, it defies comprehension. Asserting that reviving the patient is the State's responsibility rings hollow indeed, and should lawfully be a medical decision, so the State's role in ordering a doctor to do so...

I don't think the inhumanity defies comprehension. First of all, that a person lives or dies is a medical decision is not entirely true - it is ultimately the state's decision, for the state creates the laws by which the medical profession must abide. So the state's role in reviving the criminal only to execute him is indeed the right of the state, if you ascribe to the notion that the right to life of a death-row criminal is entirely the state's property. That inhumanity was involved in carrying out the sentence, even as deliberate as it was, is merely consequential. The state must assert its ownership of the convicted's life even beyond the grasp of natural death for the state is the sole carriage and preserver of justice.

 

[JMBrowning]

I never implied whether I was for or against Capital punishment. That is a different debate altogether, one which I do not take sides on. What I was commenting in the last two sentences however, was the barbaric cruelty in bringing someone back from the dead so the State could put him to death. That is so sadistic and inhumane, it defies comprehension. Asserting that reviving the patient is the State's responsibility rings hollow indeed, and should lawfully be a medical decision, so the State's role in ordering a doctor to do so, amounts to playing God - in other words, "you're going to die when we say so". This is a question that the medical community faces on a daily basis, and it uses technological advances, and family concerns as barometers to prolong agony in death. Is this what we have become as a society? Stangely enough, our pet animals fare much better in comparison.

rings hollow indeed??? Listen, maybe it's the laws wherever the guy is incarcerated. As fucked up the laws can be, it is still the law. Break the law, pay for it.

What this ultimately reveals is a society in a dire moral conflict. It leaves the condemned on death row for decades while it ruminates the pros and cons of the question. There is no doubt there is extreme polarization within its electorate, but the politicians who bear the brunt of moral ineptitude and ridicule on the World stage, are left to wring their hands back home, taking sides in public that are for the most part dictated according to the prevalent regional mood, thus avoiding the wrath of their voters, and in doing so, sanctioning the snail pace of putting these souls to rest. By the time the execution occurs, another generation has passed, and most people have forgotten the crimes or the names of the culprits. So, if Capital punishment is a tool for keeping the population in check, they have clearly lost that opportunity by delaying the inevitable.

So you try to say that the US should go back to executing the death row inmates right away with any chance of appeals, right?
I seem to remember that someone in this board (I don't know who) claimed that there were many executed prisoners in the US were actually innocent.

Little wonder the US ranks near the top of most incarceration statistics.

Can you show me the link to those statistics?

If you wanna talk about numbers in population and compare it to Canada, the US have about 9 times the population of Canada. So, it's not surprise why the US has more people incarcerated than Canada.

 

[metoo113]

The US has about 2.2 million people in there prison systems. Canada has around 36,000. There are more people in US prisons then in any other country in the world according to this site.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/

 

[JMBrowning]

Thanks for the link and info.

Although the US has more prisoners per capita than many countries in the world, I rather live in the US than in many of those countries (China and Russia).

 

[busdriver]

Eye for an eye,I am a strong beleiver of capital punisment.
I think half the population in us prison system should be put down,than they won't have this huge number of prisoners

 

[tao]

What I was commenting in the last two sentences however, was the barbaric cruelty in bringing someone back from the dead so the State could put him to death. That is so sadistic and inhumane, it defies comprehension.

ya ... standing down and letting someone die is not sadistic or inhumane

Asserting that reviving the patient is the State's responsibility rings hollow indeed, and should lawfully be a medical decision, so the State's role in ordering a doctor to do so, amounts to playing God - in other words, "you're going to die when we say so".

"rings hollow"? ... you do realize that allen was in the midst of the appeals process don't you?

honestly ... what do you think would have happened if the prison officials would not have rescusited allen, and instead issued a statement to allen's family and loved ones, stating they figured he was going to be executed anyway so they decided to not rescusitate ...

really ... can you give your opinion on that? do you think there would have been a public outcry or lawsuits?

This is a question that the medical community faces on a daily basis, and it uses technological advances, and family concerns as barometers to prolong agony in death. Is this what we have become as a society? Stangely enough, our pet animals fare much better in comparison.

interesting you mention "family concerns", do you know if allen's family or loved ones were grateful to have another 4 months with him?

rescusitating him starts to sound a little more humane if the family and loved ones were grateful.

What this ultimately reveals is a society in a dire moral conflict. It leaves the condemned on death row for decades while it ruminates the pros and cons of the question.

i am having a hard time following your logic / insinuation ... your statement reads as if society ruminating the pros and cons of the death penalty was the reason allen spent decades on death row.

allen was on death row for decades because he committed a capital crime and then exercised his right to the appeal process.

also, societies that do not have the death penalty are also deeply divided over the pros and cons of capital punishment (see canada).

so yes, allen was on death row for decades, and yes societies debate capital punishment ... stating those two facts in the same sentence the way you did makes you sound like ... well ... michael moore.