Finger licking good!
Posted on 01/17/2006 12:54:12 AM PST by CounterCounterCulture
Clarence Ray Allen, a twice-convicted murderer enfeebled by age and illness after more than two 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 about 12:38 a.m. He is the oldest prisoner ever executed in California and one of the oldest ever put to death in the United States.
His last hope was extinguished Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court denied his request for a stay of execution. Allen was legally blind, suffered from diabetes, had a heart attack in 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
(SNIP)
Allen asked for buffalo steak and white-meat chicken from KFC, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Elaine Jennings. He was to drink whole milk. For dessert, Allen, who is diabetic, ordered sugar-free pecan pie and black walnut ice cream.
(SNIP)
Heh, heh, he should have had the sugar!!!!
He sure had plenty of time to make his peace with God and repent.
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.
(SNIP)
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 scheduled 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 who had claimed redemption through his subsequent 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.''
Indeed.
GOOD!
Exactly 29 years to the day after the execution of Gary Gilmore
Which should have kept him healthy 'til the crack of doom.
Now THAT is cruel and unusual . . . just like non-fat gravy or unsalted potato chips: WTF is the point?
He was worried it might kill him? ;-)
Do they have senior citizen discounts in Hell?
That's weird.
But weirder still, Pecan Pie is filled with a sugar-and-syrup goo. So WTF is in sugar-free pecan pie? It ain't natural.
It's like a low-fiber bran muffin, or decaffeinated coffee, or powdered milk. It just doesn't make sense.
I say this is a good thing.
L
Well, they have them at the Old Country Buffet, and that's as close to hell as I ever care to come.
ping
It tastes like lard flavored jello
Good one!
My dad calls them the blue haired commandos and my brother refers to them as silverbacks.
Pecan pie is my favorite--yummm!
If you haven't seen diet tonic water, you haven't seen reductio ad absurdum ad absurdest.
Come to think of it, KFC isn't much better!
Haven't been to an Old County buffet in the last four years. Probably the best cheap buffet restaurant I've been to. Salads are horrible, and so are many of the desserts, but some of the food is pretty decent if you go on the right nights.
Not exactly a place to take a date
Early life and education
Breyer was born to a middle-class Jewish family in San Francisco, California, on August 15, 1938. In 1955, Breyer graduated from Lowell High School. At Lowell, he was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society and debated regularly in high school debate tournaments, including against future Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Tribe.
After graduating from Lowell, Breyer went on to receive an Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Arts from Magdalen College at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Harvard Law School.
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Legal career
Breyer served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg during the 1964 term. He was a special assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust from 1965 to 1967 and an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Breyer was a special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975 and served as chief counsel of the committee from 1979 to 1980.
Breyer became an assistant professor, law professor, and lecturer at Harvard Law School starting in 1967, the same he he married Joanna Hare, a psychologist and member of the British aristocracy with whom he now has three children (Chloe, Nell, and Michael). Breyer stayed at Harvard Law School until 1994, when he became a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1980. At Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law. While there, he authored two highly influential books on deregulation: Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation and Its Reform. Both remain extremely important in the law of administration and bureaucracies. Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia and later at the University of Rome.
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Judicial career
From 1980 to 1994, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and as its Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994 and the United States Sentencing Commission between 1985 and 1989. On the sentencing commission, Breyer played a key role in reforming federal criminal sentencing procedures, producing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were formulated to increase uniformity in sentences for criminal cases.
In 1993 President Bill Clinton considered him for the seat which ultimately went to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 17, 1994, to fill the vacancy left after the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994. Breyer was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in an 87 to 9 vote and took his seat August 3, 1994.
Breyer is also the second longest-serving "junior justice" in the history of the Court, close to surpassing the record set by Justice Joseph Story of 4,228 days (from February 3, 1812 to September 1, 1823); Breyer would tie this record on March 1, 2006. The junior Associate Justice on the Court is expected to take on duties such as opening and closing the door at private conference meetings and fetching coffee [1]. Breyer has remained the junior member for eleven years, and will remain the junior justice until Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement joins the court. Although Chief Justice Roberts is the newest member of the Court, the duties of the junior Justice never fall upon the Chief Justice, who is considered primus inter pares -first among equals.
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Judicial philosophy
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In general
On the bench, Breyer generally takes a pragmatic approach to constitutional issues, interested more in producing coherence and continuity in the law than in following doctrinal, historical or textual strictures. While somewhat moderate, Breyer most frequently sides with Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, generally acknowledged as being the "liberal" wing of the court. He has consistently voted in favor of abortion rights, which is one of the most controversial areas of the Supreme Court's docket. He has also urged that the Supreme Court cite international law in its decisions. However, Breyer is also deferential to the interests of law enforcement and urges that the Court be deferential to legislative judgments in its First Amendment rulings.
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Not Ailing Any Longer!
Breyer and the Democrats say kill the unborn and spare the murderers
Breyer's more of a Shoney's man.
Kinda like a dietary purgatory, right on the metaphysical threshold to hell, but with menus.
Alito will make better coffee, anyhow.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Justice served at last.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
23 years late...
"ailing"?
Well then his execution was merciful, as it put the guy out of his misery.
The victims MUST have MININUM success, the perps MUST have MAXIMUM success. See? It worked again. Now, ban crime and it's all solved. Hic
I guess he's good for something . . .
Too bad it was not the chair.
Then as he is buckled in they could ask:
Original or Extra Crisp?
That would have been a kicker if it were the chair. ..Too funny!
If there were justice in the justice system, his last meal would have been a 45 caliber bullet through the brain, 24 years ago...
(...ordered sugar-free pecan pie and black walnut ice cream.)
What a jerk, didn't he know that if he had eaten a lot of sugar, he would have gone into a diabetic coma then rushed to the infirmary where he would be stabilized and then he would get to order another last meal of sugar packed goodies and and gone into another coma and etc etc.?
Whatever happened to the catch phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied?"
"Only one justice, Stephen Breyer, voted to grant a stay."
An 8-1 U.S. supreme court vote and it wasn't Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was out of the mainstream of the court? She must be losing her touch.
Whatever happened to the catch phrase, "Justice delayed is justice denied?"
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Indeed, the scandal is not that a geezer has been executed, but that this multiple murderer has been fed, clothed, housed, and provided with full medical services (including recent resuscitation after heart failure) from his 50's to this point at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, his victims families have been left to cool their heels in the waiting room for several decades. A very odd concept of justice.
The advocates of 100% privatization of capital punishment should be hanging their heads in shame, but of course they are too busy looking for loopholes to spring the next private practitioner of the death penalty from Death Row.
A death penalty which takes 23 years to carry out is not a deterrent to crime.
Hanging from a gallows in your hometown with soiled pants in front of your neighbors within a short time frame of being convicted of murder is a deterrent.
Hmmm ... lard flavored jello ...
Yeah, shouldn't the libs be cheering for this "death with dignity"? I thought they were all for euthanasia...oh, that's not for convicted murderers?
Oh, I'm quite sorry to have misunderstood the position of killing sick elderly folks with an injection of lethal chemicals. It's good to kill the innocent, it's bad to kill the guilty. I think I've got it now.
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