Jan. 17 CALIFORNIA----execution Ailing killer executed at age 76 ---- Condemned for 3 slayings, Allen is oldest ever put to death in state Clarence Ray Allen, a twice-convicted murderer enfeebled by age and illness after more than 2 decades on death row, was executed by lethal injection early today at San Quentin State Prison for ordering three killings from his prison cell in 1980. Allen, who turned 76 on Monday, was pronounced dead at 12:38 a.m., a prison spokeswoman said. He is the oldest prisoner ever executed in California and one of the oldest ever put to death in the United States. The execution took longer than usual, about 18 minutes, and required a second dose of the heart-stopping chemical potassium chloride, the last of the 3-chemical sequence, officials said. Allen's last hope of avoiding execution was extinguished Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay. Allen was legally blind, suffered from diabetes, had a heart attack last September and was confined to a wheelchair, and his attorneys argued that executing a prisoner so old and sick would violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Only one justice, Stephen Breyer, voted to grant a stay. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had denied a clemency request Friday that also stressed Allen's age and infirmity. "The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury's punishment," Schwarzenegger said. Allen was able to walk into the death chamber under his own power but was helped onto the gurney where the lethal drugs were administered. Allen said "I love you" to friends and relatives watching the execution before the drugs took effect. Allen spent most of his final day in a special visiting room at San Quentin with relatives, friends, members of his legal team and two spiritual advisers, prison officials said. Allen claimed Choctaw and Cherokee ancestry, and both spiritual advisers were American Indians. Prison officials gave him permission to wear a beaded headband and an Indian necklace into the death chamber. "He was happy that we came," Allen's niece Rebekah Vaughn said. "Even though he was somber, he seemed to be in good spirits." At 6 p.m. Allen was transferred to a "death watch" cell near the execution chamber, where his contact was limited to the spiritual advisers and prison staff. The cell also had a radio, a television and a telephone, which Allen used to call friends and relatives, officials said. "He's making his peace," said Allen's attorney, Michael Satris. He said the execution would be "a low point in the history of California's administration of the death penalty." Shortly after 7 p.m., Allen had his final meal. Other inmates were locked in their cells all day, a prison policy for executions. This was California's second execution in just over a month. Stanley Tookie Williams, a co-founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles who became an activist against gang life and an author of books for children and youths while in prison, was executed Dec. 13 for four 1979 murders. Another prisoner, Michael Morales, could be executed in late February for the rape and murder of a 17-year-old San Joaquin County girl in 1981. The attorney general's office says 4 more executions are possible this year. The increase is due in part to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that brought more California cases under a 1996 federal law that limited the scope of prisoners' federal appeals. But state prosecutors say executions are likely to continue at a deliberate pace in California, which has 646 prisoners on death row, more than any other state. An Assembly committee approved legislation last week to halt executions for 2 years while a state commission studies possible flaws in the death penalty system. But the measure faces a doubtful future in the Legislature and a likely veto from Schwarzenegger if it passes. A sponsor of the moratorium bill, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, was among the witnesses at Allen's execution. Other witnesses included five of Allen's friends, his two spiritual advisers, and seven relatives or representatives of his victims, officials said. Allen was sentenced to death in 1982 for the murders of Bryon Schletewitz, 27, Josephine Rocha, 17, and Douglas White, 18. All 3 were shot Sept. 5, 1980, while they were closing up a Fresno market. Until he reached middle age, Allen hardly seemed like a candidate for Death Row. He went from growing up poor and picking cotton in Oklahoma to building a successful security firm in the San Joaquin Valley, where he even served a stint as a church deacon. His friends and family said he loaned money to those in need, gave lavish gifts to his employees, framed his own poetry as presents and was dedicated to his two sons, whom he raised after he and his 1st wife divorced. But there was also a sinister side to Allen. While in his 40s, officials say, Allen orchestrated eight residential and commercial robberies in the Central Valley. In some cases, he used his security firm to scope out a place in advance. Prosecutors have described him as a charismatic figure who collected Fresno County's impressionable dregs and turned them into crime lieutenants. In 1974, Allen and his crew burglarized Fran's Market, a country store on the east side of Fresno. Allen knew the owners, Raymond and Frances Schletewitz. In his less affluent days, he had rented a small house on their property for $75 a month. The Schletewitzes' daughter, Patricia Pendergrass, said there were times when Allen couldn't afford to pay the rent, so her father would let him work it off by tilling their grove. But as Allen's security business grew, he was able to buy his own ranch in the area and stock it with fancy show horses, an airplane and a swimming pool. To gain entrance to Fran's Market, Allen invited the Schletewitzes' son, Bryon, to a party. While Bryon was swimming, someone rifled through his pants pockets for a key to the store's security system. Allen and two associates broke into the market and stole $500 and money orders worth $10,000. Mary Sue Kitts, the 17-year-old girlfriend of Allen's son, told Bryon Schletewitz about the burglary. Raymond Schletewitz confronted Allen, who denied knowing anything about the crime. According to associates who testified at his 1977 trial, he ordered his henchman Lee Furrow to kill Kitts because he wouldn't tolerate "snitches." When Furrow waffled, Allen told him he would end up dead, too, if he didn't do it, according to prosecutors. Kitts was strangled and thrown into the Friant-Kern Canal, never to be found, according to investigators. Allen was convicted of Kitts' murder and sentenced to life in prison. In Folsom Prison's cafeteria, Allen met a soon-to-be paroled inmate, Billy Ray Hamilton, and enlisted him to kill eight people who had testified against him at his trial, including Raymond and Bryon Schletewitz. Allen's goals, according to prosecutors, were personal vengeance and to permanently silence the witnesses before his upcoming appeal. Another inmate testified he had heard Allen offer Hamilton $25,000 for the killings, said Deputy Attorney General Ward Campbell. Allen is said to have smuggled instructions out of prison in his grandchild's diaper to his son so he could help Hamilton carry out the killings. On Sept. 5, 1980, Hamilton and his girlfriend Connie Barbo went to Fran's Market and hung around until closing time. Hamilton then killed Bryon Schletewitz, Rocha and White at close range with a sawed-off shotgun. He also shot a 4th worker, Joe Rios, who survived. Barbo was arrested at the scene, and Hamilton was caught a week later holding a hit list with the names and addresses of the eight witnesses. Barbo was sentenced to life in prison, and Hamilton was sent to join Allen on death row. Allen becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death in California since the state resumed capital punishment in 1992. Allen becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1005th overall since the nation resumed executions exactly 29 years ago today, on January 17, 1977. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Clarence Ray Allen Born: Jan. 16, 1930, in Blair, Okla. Background: Picked cotton with his family as a child and ended his schooling by the 8th grade. Held jobs in the San Joaquin Valley as a warehouse manager, ranch hand and night watchman before starting a successful security firm in 1968. Crimes: Convicted of ordering the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts, 17, for implicating him in a grocery store burglary. Sentenced to life in prison. Convicted of orchestrating three 1980 murders from his prison cell; one of the victims had testified against him in his earlier trial. Sentenced to death. (sources: San Francisco Chronicle & Rick Halperin) ********************* A quieter protest outside San Quentin this time ---- About 300 people, some of them kin, in the glare of TV With no celebrity inmate in the execution chamber this time, the ranks of death penalty protesters were considerably thinner Monday night outside San Quentin State Prison. Only about 300 people turned out to protest the execution of Clarence Ray Allen, some of whom were the 76-year-old inmate's relatives. The scene was familiar: TV lights blazing, people shivering in the night air and waves lapping on the shoreline of the bay. But Allen's execution did not draw the oratory of the Rev. Jesse Jackson or the folk-singing of Joan Baez, both of whom were among the 2,000 people outside San Quentin's walls the night Stanley Tookie Williams was put to death last month. Joss Eldredge, 55, a San Francisco dog walker who showed up to protest Monday night, said the turnout was "hypocritical" compared with the showing for Williams, a former gang leader and convicted murderer who had claimed redemption through his antiviolence writings. He was executed Dec. 13. "Clearly, a number of people were here last time because of Williams' celebrity," Eldredge said. "It bothers me quite a bit that not as many people are here today, but it's the same death penalty." Jes Richardson, an elementary school teacher from San Geronimo, was standing beside his 10-foot-tall, papier-mache sculpture of Mohandas Gandhi. "Gandhi is one of my heroes because he created change through nonviolence," Richardson said. "I'm opposed to the death penalty. It creates a violent society." William Rowan, a 16-year-old junior at Sacred Heart prep school in Atherton, walked the 15 miles from San Francisco to the prison with classmates and teachers. He said he had no love for Allen but that no one deserved to be executed. "I'm not here because I don't think he's guilty," Rowan said. "I'm here because I don't think he should be killed in the name of preventing murder. It just doesn't make sense to try to stop the killing through more killing." The protesters gathered into what was described as an "Indian prayer circle" and chanted. "We pray there is an end to the death penalty and justice for all of us," said Raa Thunder, a Cherokee who led the prayers. About 10 p.m., a half dozen death penalty advocates showed up and shouting matches ensued. "We're the minority here but we're the majority in the state," said Rudy Thered, who said he had come to show support for the people Allen ordered murdered. Steve Vaughn, 48, who is married to Allen's niece, was one of a half dozen relatives of the condemned man who stood beside the prison walls. He was among Allen's last visitors Monday afternoon. "He was extremely emotional," Vaughn said. "He's sorry for all the things that have happened." Vaughn did not say Allen had acknowledged orchestrating the three murders that put him on death row or apologized to the victims' families. Allen has always maintained his innocence. Vaughn said the family's final meeting was tense, emotional and filled with long silences. Allen had asked his close relatives not to witness the execution. "He was somber, trying to say goodbye to everyone," Vaughn said. "He talked about old times in Fresno, picking cotton and going to church." (source: San Francisco Chronicle) ************ California Executes Death Row Inmate, 76 California prison officials executed 76-year-old murderer Clarence Ray Allen at the state prison here early today after his final appeal was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court. His death by lethal injection was announced at 12:38 a.m. by Elaine Jennings of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Allen was wheeled into the death chamber at 12:04 a.m. By 12:35 a.m., Jennings said, the 3 drugs used in the process had been administered, however a 2nd dose of potassium chloride -- which stops the heart -- was required. Allen, who turned 76 Monday, was by far the oldest of the 13 convicts executed in the state since California restored the death penalty in 1977 and the 2nd oldest in the nation. That status, however, may not endure. California has the nation's largest death row -- 646 inmates -- but executes a relatively small number. As a result, the ranks of the condemned grow steadily more elderly, and now include five older than 70, 34 in their 60s and 155 between 50 and 59. Lawyers for Allen argued that his lengthy time on death row, age and ill health should have barred his execution; he recently had a heart attack, suffered from diabetes, was legally blind and used a wheelchair. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a series of courts rejected those pleas over the last several days. On Sunday night, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals noted that Allen was already 50 years old and incarcerated at Folsom State Prison for another killing when he orchestrated the triple murder for which he was handed the death penalty in 1982. Evidence at that trial showed he had paid another inmate $25,000 to kill 3 potential witnesses against him. "His age and experience only sharpened his ability to coldly calculate the execution of the crime," wrote Wardlaw, an appointee of President Clinton. "Nothing about his current ailments reduces his culpability." The execution was the second in a month's time, which is rare for California. Last month, the state executed Stanley Tookie Williams, 51, the former leader of the Crips gang. Later this week, a Ventura County Superior Court judge is expected to set an execution date for 46-year-old Michael Morales stemming from a 1983 murder in San Joaquin County. State officials also have said it is possible that execution dates could be scheduled later this year for 2 other longtime condemned inmates, Stevie Lamar Fields, 49, and Mitchell Sims, 45. Allen's last significant court challenge failed Monday afternoon when the Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution. As it often does in death cases, the court acted without a written opinion. Justice Stephen G. Breyer issued the only dissent, a brief statement noting Allen's age, ill health and the fact that he "has been on death row for 23 years." "I believe that in the circumstances, he raises a significant question as to whether his execution would constitute 'cruel and unusual punishment,'" Breyer wrote. Since California reinstated the death penalty, the inmates who have been executed have had an average stay on death row of nearly 16 years, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The cases take a long time for several reasons, but chief among them is that the state takes considerable care in reviewing death sentences. The state Supreme Court automatically reviews each capital case. Although the court upholds the overwhelming majority, it does not begin the process until an appellate lawyer has been found to represent the inmate. Finding lawyers able and willing to handle the cases has proved difficult, Chief Justice Ronald M. George has said. Currently, more than 100 inmates have no lawyer for their appeal, and the waiting list to get an appellate lawyer is several years long, said UC Berkeley law professor Elisabeth Semel, who runs the school's death penalty clinic. Allen's case did not draw as much media attention as that of Williams, who was executed in December after a massive campaign urging the governor to grant clemency. Nonetheless, Death Penalty Focus, a San Francisco-based group that opposes capital punishment, held a 25-mile "Walk for Abolition" on Monday, starting at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, proceeding across the Golden Bridge and culminating at San Quentin. The group said there also would be a rally against the death penalty in Los Angeles and vigils outside the state Capitol and in several other cities around the state. Shortly before the scheduled execution, the number of protesters outside the prison grew to about 300. Allen maintained his innocence, despite what Judge Wardlaw, in an earlier decision on the case, had called "overwhelming" evidence of his guilt. The case involved the murders of Bryon Schletewitz, 27; Douglas White, 18; and Josephine Rocha, 17. Prosecutors told a jury in Fresno that Allen had organized the murders and paid a fellow inmate, Billy Ray Hamilton, to carry them out. At the time, Allen was in prison, convicted of the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts. California did not have a death penalty statute at that time. Kitts, a girlfriend of Allen's son, Kenneth, was found strangled after telling the owners of a Fresno market that Allen's gang had burglarized their business. Schletewitz was the son of the store owners and had testified against Allen in the Kitts case. According to prosecutors, Allen, who was seeking a retrial in the Kitts case, paid Hamilton to kill Schletewitz and other potential witnesses. According to testimony, Hamilton went to the store, Fran's Market, with a sawed-off shotgun, ordered Schletewitz and 3 other store employees to lie on the floor and then shot all 4. One employee, Joe Rios, was shot in the face but survived and testified at the trial. Hamilton was arrested during a liquor store robbery a week after the murders. When he was captured, police found that he had the names and addresses of 7 others Allen wanted killed. Hamilton also was sentenced to death and is still on death row. Kenneth Allen, who provided the shotgun to Hamilton, was given a life term for his role in the crime, as was his girlfriend Connie Barbo. After the Supreme Court turned Allen down, Deputy Atty. Gen. Ward Campbell, who prosecuted him, noted that "every court has now rejected all of Allen's claims." "Allen deserves capital punishment because he was already serving a life sentence for murder when he masterminded the murders of 3 innocent young people and conspired to attack the heart of our criminal justice system," Campbell said. Anti-death-penalty activists Monday distributed excerpts from an interview that Michael Kroll, a founding director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., had done with Allen, in which he asked if the condemned man was willing to express remorse for the killings. According to Kroll, Allen responded that he was "terribly sorry for all that happened. But I can never express remorse for this crime because I didn't do it." "I hope to meet the victims in the afterlife and explain to them I never plotted to harm them, and I never wanted them to be harmed," he added. Although Kroll repeated Allen's claims of innocence, other protesters expressed opposition to all executions. Lyle Grosjean, 72, a retired Episcopal priest who was one of the marchers Monday, said he had participated in virtually identical marches from the Legion of Honor to San Quentin for every execution in California in the last 46 years, starting with the 1960 gassing of Caryl Chessman, the rapist who gained fame through his death row writings. "We do it every time. We believe that there is a need to have a witness against the death penalty on the eve of every execution regardless of the person or the crime or the victims," Grosjean said in a telephone interview as he marched Monday. "We believe murder is wrong and [the] execution of murderers is just as wrong." Outside the prison, a San Quentin spokesman, Lt. Vernell Crittendon, told reporters that Allen had been "surprisingly upbeat." "He is at peace with this process that's about to unfold in the next few hours," Crittendon said Monday night. Crittendon said he has been present at all of the executions in the state since 1978, and for a few in other states, including Arizona and Maryland, and that Allen's "jovial" demeanor was far from the norm. In the last few days, Allen was visited by friends, family and supporters, and "he has insisted that they don't engage in sobbing or crying," Crittendon said. At 6 p.m., Allen was moved to the death-watch cell and met with a Native American spiritual advisor. Crittendon said Allen would be allowed to carry several Native American religious artifacts with him at the time of his death, including a headband and a neck piece known as a "stairway to heaven." Allen, whose mother is part Choctaw and father is part Cherokee, "professed to be a Native American since about 1988," Crittendon said. Kroll said Allen had told him that when the time came, "the last words I'll speak is an old Indian saying, hok-ah-ei -- it's a good day to die." (source: Los Angeles Times) ************ Extra chemicals needed to kill Calif.'s oldest condemned inmate 4 months after he was revived from a nearly fatal heart attack and returned to death row at San Quentin State Prison, California's oldest condemned inmate needed an extra dose of a lethal chemical to end his life early Tuesday. Clarence Ray Allen was put to death the day after his 76th birthday amid controversy over whether the state should kill a diabetic old man who, his attorneys said, could barely see, hear or walk. Supported by four large correctional officers, he shuffled from his wheelchair to the gurney where he was executed for arranging a triple murder at a Fresno grocery store 25 years ago. "My last words will be, 'Hoka Hey, it's a good day to die,'" Allen said in a nod to his Choctaw Indian heritage. "Thank you very much, I love you all. Goodbye." Allen was pronounced dead at 12:38 a.m., hours after he exhausted legal appeals that his life should be spared because of his advanced age and infirmities. Though legally blind, Allen raised his head to search among execution witnesses for relatives he had invited, mouthing "I love you." Anticipating a possible replay of his September heart attack, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution. In the end, doctors had to administer a 2nd shot of potassium chloride to stop the barrel-chested prisoner's heart. "It's not unusual, this guy's heart had been going for 76 years," said Warden Stephen Ornoski. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, witnessed the execution as a member of a legislative committee debating a moratorium on the death penalty. "He did not appear to be as infirm as news accounts portrayed him. For 76 years-old, he looked to be in remarkably good shape," Spitzer said. Allen died wearing a beaded headband, a medicine bag around his neck and a ceremonial eagle feather on his chest. 2 American Indian spiritual advisers visited with him in the hours before the execution. He released a last statement read by Ornoski saying he enjoyed his last meal. But Allen had proclaimed his innocence, and his final words never mentioned the 1980 hit job that resulted in the murders of a 17-year-old girl and 2 men, ages 18 and 27. The family of one of Allen's victims, Josephine Rocha, said in a statement that Allen "abused the justice system with endless appeals until he lived longer in prison than the short 17 years of Josephine's life." Allen was serving a life term at Folsom State Prison when he gave a recently paroled convict a list of 7 witnesses who had helped put him behind bars for the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts, his son's teenage girlfriend who helped him burglarize a Fresno grocery store. He wanted the 7 killed so they couldn't testify during his appeals. Among those targeted was Bryon Schletewitz, whose family owned Fran's Market. Schletewitz and 2 clerks - Rocha and Douglas Scott White - were slain. The killings landed Allen and hit man Billy Ray Hamilton on death row. No execution date has been set for Hamilton. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Allen's last-minute appeal. One of Allen's attorneys, Annette Carnegie, blamed "prison authorities' deliberate neglect of his medical needs" for his physical condition. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected similar arguments in denying Allen clemency Friday. Allen's case generated far less publicity than last month's execution of Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, whose case set off a nationwide debate over the possibility of redemption on death row. There were only about 200 people gathered outside the prison, about 1/10 of the crowd that came out last month. Allen was the 2nd-oldest inmate executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed nearly 30 years ago, behind only a 77-year-old in Mississippi last month. His was California's 13th execution since state lawmakers restored capital punishment in 1977 and the 3rd in the last 12 months. "It went smoothly, it went as it was planned, and I believe ultimately, Mr. Allen received the justice he deserved for the murders he committed," state prosecutor Ward Campbell said. (source: Associated Press) ********************* Debate death penalty, but not on Clarence Allen's terms With some dissent, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal from a 76-year-old convicted killer who argued that he was too old and feeble to be executed. The ruling cleared the way for Clarence Ray Allen to be put to death early today. Allen at this writing is legally blind, nearly deaf and confined to a wheelchair. His attorney had argued that putting such a pitiful person to death was cruel and unusual punishment. Allen's counsel also argued that Allen's 23 years on death row already constituted punishment that was cruel and unusual. Justice Stephen Breyer filed a dissent to the court's decision not to delay Allen's death, saying Allen's circumstances raise "a significant question as to whether his execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment." This is not the 1st time Breyer has sided with convicted killers looking to delay their deaths on such flimsy grounds; in 2002 he stated that a Florida inmate who spent 27 years in prison also was fair in asking whether such punishment was "both unusual and cruel." Justice Clarence Thomas countered with cold logic, writing that the inmate, "could long ago have ended his anxieties and uncertainties by submitting to what the people of Florida have deemed him to deserve: execution." The death penalty deserves debate. And convicted killers will continue to argue that putting them to death is cruel and unusual. But we're fools to let them argue, as Breyer would, that the time they've spent in prison stalling that death sentence through appeals and every possible legal technicality is also cruel and unusual. They can't be allowed to have it both ways. Clarence Ray Allen killed his son's 17-year-old girlfriend for fear she would tell police about a burglary. He then was convicted of trying to kill off all the witnesses to his crime; a hitman hired by Allen while he was already behind bars killed one of those witnesses and two innocent bystanders, earning Allen a death sentence. We repeat: Allen earned this death sentence; he practically went out of his way to get it. That he staved it off for over 2 decades until he was in frail health - and then tried to argue that his health was reason for further clemency - is his fault, not the state of California's. (source: Editorial, The (N.C.) Daily Dispatch) USA: DNA Tests May Signal Shift in Death Penalty Debate----Capital Punishment Supporters Say Stance Is Boosted by Results Proving Guilt of Executed Va. Killer As Jim McCloskey drove last week from Virginia back to the New Jersey charity he founded 2 decades ago to help free wrongfully convicted inmates, his mind was on the murderer and rapist who fooled him with false claims of innocence. On May 20, 1992, in the hours before Roger K. Coleman was executed, McCloskey shared a pizza with Coleman outside Virginia's death chamber and vowed he would keep fighting to exonerate him. Coleman told him to turn to look at a television, where the phrase "miscarriage of justice" flashed across the screen as prison guards watched "Jeopardy." McCloskey, convinced for years that he had witnessed a fatal mistake in the criminal justice system, last week learned that DNA tests proved that Coleman was a rapist and killer. Now he will try to figure out how he was misled. "He pulled the wool over my eyes," said McCloskey, 63. "I'm going back and reflecting. Why was I blinded by this or that? We will learn from this." For McCloskey, Coleman's guilt is a "bitter pill to swallow." But in the overall debate about the death penalty, Coleman's DNA results may be a watershed moment. Coleman's case is rare. It had elements that very few other cases of executed inmates have: preserved DNA evidence, advocates willing to do legal work for free and, ultimately, a governor in Mark R. Warner who was willing to order the tests. Now, death penalty foes will have to look for a new case on which to make their argument. Michael Mello, a professor at Vermont Law School who has represented death row inmates, said an exoneration of Coleman would have cemented what he says is declining support for the death penalty nationwide -- a shift he attributes to concern over wrongful convictions and to states adding the option of sentencing felons to life without the chance of parole. Last year, as the United States recorded the 1,000th execution since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, 60 inmates were executed, compared with a record-high 98 in 1999. The number of people sentenced to death has also been dwindling, with 125 felons entering death row in 2004, compared to about 300 annually in the mid-1990s. In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned executions of minors and mentally retarded offenders. But for advocates of capital punishment, Coleman's test results are proof that the system works, and some think it switches momentum to their argument. "The Coleman case proves exactly what we've been saying: that the safeguards are there," said Stanley Rosenbluth, president of Virginians United Against Crime, a support group for victims that supports the death penalty. Coleman, a coal miner from the town of Grundy in southwestern Virginia, was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1981 rape and stabbing of his sister-in-law, 19-year-old Wanda McCoy. He maintained his innocence in television and newspaper interviews that generated attention around the world. After he was strapped into Virginia's electric chair, he declared, "An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight." McCloskey, other Coleman supporters, death penalty foes and media outlets, including The Washington Post, lost a years-long court battle to have biological evidence in the case tested using modern techniques. But last month, Warner (D) agreed to allow the analysis, becoming the nation's 1st governor to order post-execution testing. On Thursday, Warner announced that there was a one in 19 million chance that semen found on McCoy's body belonged to someone other than Coleman. Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) issued a statement saying that the tests showed that "trust in our criminal justice system is well founded" and that the death penalty has been fairly carried out in the state. At the same time, death penalty opponents have noted that although Coleman was guilty, more than 170 prisoners have been exonerated by DNA tests in recent years. Some of them were on death row. In December, Warner ordered a broad examination of samples in old cases after two men who had been wrongly convicted of rape were exonerated by DNA tests. The governor quietly allowed the Coleman tests about the same time. Ira Robbins, an American University law professor, said perhaps the most important contribution of Coleman's case is that it may help persuade officials across the country to seek DNA tests in other post-conviction or post-execution cases. "I think that other governors have cover provided by Governor Warner, because he comes from a conservative state," Robbins said. Indeed, McCloskey and others have urged other officials to follow Warner's lead. "Governor Warner's decision . . . establishes an important principle: that we should always continue searching for the truth in criminal cases," said Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. The testing in Coleman's case marks only the 2nd time nationwide that DNA tests have been performed after a defendant was executed. In 2000, tests ordered by a Georgia judge on evidence in the case of Ellis W. Felker, who was executed in 1996, were inconclusive. Genetic tests exonerated Florida inmate Frank L. Smith in 2000, several months after he died of natural causes while awaiting execution. McCloskey, who left work as a management consultant to go to Princeton Theological Seminary in the 1970s, will go back to investigating other cases. He said there's a man in a Texas prison who might be innocent and someone who has spent 22 years in a California prison for a murder he says he didn't commit. So far, McCloskey's nonprofit group, Centurion Ministries, has helped clear 36 inmates. In 5 other cases, including Coleman's, the group's work confirmed guilt. He said he feels betrayed by Coleman, but he is glad to finally know the truth. "People ask me if I'm mad at Roger. That might develop, but it hasn't yet," McCloskey said. "We all get fooled by somebody. We have to face up, admit that and not hide." (source: Washington Post) ************* Death Penalty What's wrong with this picture? A 76-year-old man, legally blind, nearly deaf and confined to a wheelchair, Clarence Ray Allen, is scheduled to die by lethal injection just after midnight Monday. He has been on death row for 23 years, in prison for about 30 and last September his heart stopped beating, but prison doctors were able to revive him and return him to death row. How much sense does it make to revive a man whose heart has stopped beating so that the State of California can carry out the execution? It is not like there is a shortage. California has 648 inmates on death row. The question has to be asked, "What purpose does this execution serve?" Protecting society? Punishment? Corrections? Prevent others from committing crimes? You come up with the answer, because we can't really find a good one. What we have here is a system that is broken. Last week, in another case, DNA tests showed that the man that the State of Virginia executed some 13 plus years ago was indeed guilty. That probably should make us feel better about the system, but 14 years of legal hassle to get a DNA test? "Stunned. Betrayed. Mystified". That was how Jim McCloskey, executive director of Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit organization that works to free prisoners it believes have been convicted of murders or rapes they did not commit described what he was feeling yesterday after DNA tests revealed that Roger Keith Coleman was a killer after all. Just before Roger Keith Coleman was executed in Virginia in the spring of 1992, Jim McCloskey made him a promise: to continue efforts to prove Coleman's innocence. It has taken nearly 14 years, but McCloskey kept his word, and this week advanced DNA testing showed conclusively Coleman raped and murdered his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy, in a tiny Appalachian coal town back in 1981. After Coleman's death, McCloskey pressed on as DNA technology became more sophisticated. Centurion Ministries and several newspapers went to court in 2001 seeking retesting of semen removed from McCoy's body. The Virginia Supreme Court refused in 2002, so McCloskey turned to the governor. Last week, Virginia Governor Warner said he ordered the testing - which began last month - because technological advances could provide forensic certainty that was not available when Coleman was convicted in 1982. "All of us in the criminal-justice system who care about the truth and do everything we humanly can to secure the truth, we all live and die by the sword of DNA," McCloskey said. McCloskey, took solace in the fact that at least the truth was now known. "None of us should fear the truth," said McCloskey, who added that DNA testing should be done any time there are questions about innocence and biological evidence was available. "Let the DNA chips fall where they may." McCloskey's organization, Centurion Ministries, has won freedom for about 3 dozen prisoners who had been convicted of murders or rapes, including 4 from Philadelphia. McCloskey said he remained confident in his organization's work, and in his belief that innocent people had been executed. And he said the people of Virginia could rest easy with the scientific assurance that the man who was executed was actually guilty. "Now we have settled the question," he said. "Virginia can breathe a sigh of relief that an innocent man was not executed. That serves a great public interest." We don't think that capital punishment is really about punishment or preventing crime. We aren't sure exactly what it is about, but we think perhaps, judging from the reaction of the prow death penalty supporters to the Virginia case, revenge may be the motivation. The president of Throw Away The Key, Michael Paranzino had harsh remarks about the DNA results and was hardly magnanimous in victory. He also, in our humble opinion, demonstrates one of the problems with the application of the death penalty - gross over generalization. Paranzio said: "Stop the presses: it turns out that rapists and killers are also liars. Roger Keith Coleman, like every killer on death row, professed his innocence until the very moment he took his last breath. The only problem was, prominent liberals fell for Coleman's lies hook, line and sinker. New DNA tests released today show that the likelihood that the DNA found in the victim was not Coleman's would be 1 in 19 million. In short, Coleman was a killer. Everyone who said otherwise was dead wrong. "As they almost always do, they (The Jury)looked past the defense lies and well-funded pro-killer activist groups to do justice in this case. Thanks to this jury, a rapist-killer is no longer a threat to the women of Virginia. But this case is an important reminder that the pro-killer forces are powerful and relentless." "But the fact remains, every killer executed since the American death penalty was restored in 1976 has indeed been a cold-blooded killer. "The next time a death penalty opponent insists that some killer on death row is innocent, remember that's also what they told us about Roger Keith Coleman. Thug huggers have every right to claim innocence for every cold-blooded killer out there, and we have every right to ignore them. Death penalty opponents have long overreached, but this time they got caught. This is a watershed moment that will further weaken their efforts to protect killers from facing justice." There you have it, 2 sides to the issue. Not exactly. The DNA testing proved guilt and showed that the State Of Virginia did not execute an innocent man when it executed Roger Coleman, it did not demonstrate in any meaningful way that execution was the proper penalty. The testing did demonstrate that in that particular case the individual executed was guilty of the crime. It did not, by any extension of logic, prove that any other verdict in any other case is accurate. It did, once again, demonstrate the high cost of the death penalty. Eleven years of litigation before the execution, 14 more years after. We spend a lot of money executing people. Every study shows we spend way more to exercise capital punishment than life imprisonment. There is a moral argument. Thursdays issue did not address the morality of executing anyone, guilty or innocent. How high is the cost on ethical grounds? How high would it have been if the results had turned out differently on Thursday? Will the world be a better place for us all when we wake up Tuesday morning, after an old man has been put to death? We doubt if anyone will notice a difference. (source: PostRockCountry.com, Jan. 15) CONNECTICUT: Church group takes death sentence issue to high court The legal arm of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ asked the state Supreme Court on Wednesday to compel a state board to come up with regulations for commuting death sentences. James Wade, a lawyer working for free for the Missionary Society of Connecticut, argued that the Board of Pardons and Parole should have set standards to help it decide whether to reduce an inmates death sentence to life in prison without parole, or another charge. "What are the standards for commutation?" asked Wade. "If we're going to kill them, there ought to be a process thats recognized." The Missionary Society, which opposes capital punishment, has said it believes commutation hearings should be mandatory in all death penalty cases. The group made similar arguments last year when serial killer Michael Ross was facing execution. At the time, Ross was refusing a hearing because he said he was willing to be put to death for his crimes. A trial court later ruled that the Missionary Society did not have the legal standing to force the board to hold a commutation hearing for Ross, who was put to death by lethal injection last May and became the 1st person executed in New England in 45 years. Wade is appealing that decision. It is expected to take the states highest court about 6 weeks to determine whether the trial courts ruling was correct. Wade said he's appealing the decision because he still has not been able to persuade the Board of Pardons and Parole to draft regulations. "What they're doing is effectively ignoring me," he said. "We have a board that is operating ad hoc. They're running the show the way they want to run the show." But Assistant Attorney General Steven Strom, who is representing the parole board, said that if the Missionary Society wants regulations on commutations, they should ask the state legislature to change the law and require the board to craft regulations. They would then have to be approved by the legislatures Regulation Review Committee. Strom said current law only requires the board to come up with written policies. There is no mandatory language that compels the board to write regulations, he said. That is not unusual, he said. Strom argued it would be impossible for state government to function if every state policy required going through the regulations approval process. At one point in Wednesday's hearing, Chief Justice William J. Sullivan asked Wade whether he has asked the legislature to change the law and require commutation hearings for all death penalty cases, or require the Board of Pardons and Parole to create regulations outlining the rules and standards for commutations. Wade said he had not, but would not rule out doing so in the future. (source: Associated Press)
