Well, at 12:38 this morning, California dropped the pill... threw the switch... pulled the trap door... fried... cooked... (I wonder what the euphemism is for lethal injection) quadruple-murderer Clarence Ray Allen.

Does anybody here know why notorious criminals are so often three-named-people? ???

[quote author=Ły

Don't most of us have three names? I know I do.

I think the more important question is why kill a 75 year-old?
Does anyone know when his crimes were committed?

[quote author=Ły

Don't most of us have three names? I know I do.



But are you called by all three?  I hardly ever use my middle name.



Does anyone know when his crimes were committed?



In 1974 and he was convicted in 1977

In 1974 and he was convicted in 1977


So CA paid for his legal expenses and room and board for nearly 30 years before putting him down.
I support the death penalty in some cases, but that just doesn't make sense to me.

[quote author=Ły

So CA paid for his legal expenses and room and board for nearly 30 years before putting him down.
I support the death penalty in some cases, but that just doesn't make sense to me.


The waiting periods for an execution are absolutely insane.  I for one am for the death penalty when debating with others who think that the person who committed the murder should only serve a maximum  sentence as if he/she robbed a bank or those who think the person shouldn't be punished at all.  I am against the death penalty if others whom I'm debating with are for life imprisonment.

Don't most of us have three names? I know I do.

I think the more important question is why kill a 75 year-old?
Does anyone know when his crimes were committed?

Intentional overdose?  :o
he killed or had his teen age son's girlfriend killed in the late 70s for "snitching' on him.And I think he killed the son of a store owner and 2 bystanders in 1980.These people would have been pushing 50 had they lived.

The waiting periods for an execution are absolutely insane.

I will agree with that, but...


I for one am for the death penalty when debating with others who think that the person who committed the murder should only serve a maximum  sentence as if he/she robbed a bank or those who think the person shouldn't be punished at all.  I am against the death penalty if others whom I'm debating with are for life imprisonment.

??? I don't understand that part ???
Life is OK as long as they don't get out?

I truly believe that some people should die.
Could you please explain further, Harmonica?

The three named thing is something that was pretty much developed by writers to give the killers more of a  non figment of imagination persona.

I also think it may have something to do with the court docket.
A persons complete name is usually used for the defendant.

he killed or had his teen age son's girlfriend killed in the late 70s for "snitching' on him.And I think he killed the son of a store owner and 2 bystanders in 1980.These people would have been pushing 50 had they lived.

Dead finks don't talk.   As for the kid and the bystanders, as Richard Speck said, "I guess it wasn't their night!"
:o

I hardly need mention I'm 100% against the DP, but if the sentence is execution, then the sentence hasn't been carried out until the convict is executed, regardless of how many years have intervened.

[quote author=Ły

So CA paid for his legal expenses and room and board for nearly 30 years before putting him down.
I support the death penalty in some cases, but that just doesn't make sense to me.


Under current law, they couldn't carry out the execution until all of his appeals had been turned down. His last appeal was recently turned down which allowed the state to carry out his sentence.
If anything is wrong, it is a too-long appeal process.


I hardly need mention I'm 100% against the DP, but if the sentence is execution, then the sentence hasn't been carried out until the convict is executed, regardless of how many years have intervened.


There ya go!

he killed or had his teen age son's girlfriend killed in the late 70s for "snitching' on him.And I think he killed the son of a store owner and 2 bystanders in 1980.These people would have been pushing 50 had they lived.


From the Tookie thread:

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Dusk had just fallen on the night of Sept. 5, 1980, when Jack Abbott heard gunshots at the general store next door. He grabbed his shotgun and vaulted the wall separating their properties.

"I could see them in there, someone with a gun in their hand. I could see somebody lying on the floor," Abbott recalled during a recent interview.

Inside, he found the bodies of two clerks, Douglas Scott White, 18, and Josephine Rocha, 17. The owners' son, Bryon Schletewitz, 27, was dead in the stockroom. Abbott was shot in the back, but he still managed to shoot the fleeing intruder in the foot.

The killings at Fran's Market that night put two men on death row: a 32-year-old newly paroled convict named Billy Ray Hamilton, and Clarence Ray Allen, the man who ordered the attack from prison.

Barring a last-minute reprieve, Allen will become the oldest inmate put to death in California if he is executed as scheduled at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, just after his 76th birthday.

Read more

http://hosted.ap.org/photos/F/FX10101132249-big.jpg
This is an undated photo of death row inmate Clarence Ray Allen provided by the California Attorney Generals Office. Allen is scheduled to be executed early Tuesday morning Jan. 17, 2006 for hiring a hit man who killed three people at a Fresno, Calif., market in 1980. Allen, who turns 76 on the eve of his execution, would be the second-oldest person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. (AP Photo/California Attorney Generals Office)

--Hmm....a white male with a cigarette and a firearm.  Way too un-PC for the liberals to touch, maybe that is why only 150 people protested his execution compared to 2,000 for Stanley Tookie Williams.

So CA paid for his legal expenses and room and board for nearly 30 years before putting him down.
I support the death penalty in some cases, but that just doesn't make sense to me.


You have to understand how this worked in California.

In 1979, California Voters voted to re-enact the death penalty in the state.  But the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court at the time was Justice Rose Bird.  Under her term, every Death Penalty appeal was granted.  Finally in 1986, the people had enough of her.  Under a recall vote, she was removed from the bench.

Then you have the 9th Circus Court Of Appeals.  They have an appeal rate that is not much different then that of Judge Bird, and that is the Appellate Court that juresdiction in California.  They were the ones that when Richard Allan Smith requested an appeal 1 hour before his execution was scheduled (the appeal was that the Gas Chamber was "Cruel And Unusual Punishment) they granted it (and 6 others within 24 hours).  Of course, the US Supreme Court said that they had over 15 years to make appeals under that reasoning, and overturned it (and the other 6 appeals as well).

California has the longest backlog of executions of any state in the country.  The last time I heard (about 4 years ago), at the current rate they will catch up by the turn of the century.  Is it any wonder that it is normally 25-35 years between conviction and execution there?

And as to why the "3 names". that is to try and prevent confusion with people with similar first and last names.  After all, if your name is John Gacey, it is nice to be able to tell everybody that you are not John Wayne Gacey, the pedophile murderer.

I will agree with that, but...

??? I don't understand that part ???
Life is OK as long as they don't get out?

I truly believe that some people should die.
Could you please explain further, Harmonica?


I hear some politicians who are against the death penalty because they believe that a murderer should be put back into a functioning society as if he/she had done nothing wrong. They're pretty much against all punishment. Unless of course you count supervision and a few restrictions as punishment. I don't.

Other politicans who are against the death penalty just don't believe we should be putting the issue of someones death into our own hands.  They do however believe in punishment and that punishment would be life imprisonment. 

I also think it may have something to do with the court docket.
A persons complete name is usually used for the defendant.


Absolutely. I was using the information I know from Author Robert Greysmith.

Read more

http://hosted.ap.org/photos/F/FX10101132249-big.jpg
This is an undated photo of death row inmate Clarence Ray Allen provided by the California Attorney Generals Office. Allen is scheduled to be executed early Tuesday morning Jan. 17, 2006 for hiring a hit man who killed three people at a Fresno, Calif., market in 1980. Allen, who turns 76 on the eve of his execution, would be the second-oldest person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. (AP Photo/California Attorney Generals Office)

--Hmm....a white male with a cigarette and a firearm.  Way too un-PC for the liberals to touch, maybe that is why only 150 people protested his execution compared to 2,000 for Stanley Tookie Williams.

Gosh.  He looks like a nice enough fella.  You don't think they could have the wrong man, maybe?
:D
Yeah, somehow I can't see my liberal compatriots waving enlarged prints of Allen's mug, and rallying to the cry of "Free Clarence!"

My opinion on why "Tookie" was what he became is different from yours, but I told several of my liberal friends I didn't think he was a good candidate for martyr status!  Now, Mumia Abu Jamal is a different story!

Dead finks don't talk.   As for the kid and the bystanders, as Richard Speck said, "I guess it wasn't their night!"
:o


Richard Speck is probably a good example of where life in prison is worse than the death penalty.

Speck essentially became a lifelong pass-along-pack sex toy for the inmates in the Illinois prison system.  Eventually he even took drugs to grow a set of breasts.

He entered those nurse's apartment wanting to get sex.  And that is what he got... a lifetime of sex at the hands of prison inmates.  The only thing I wonder is whay kind of person (woman or man) would ever want to do it with Richard Speck? I mean, eeewwww

In 1979, California Voters voted to re-enact the death penalty in the state.  But the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court at the time was Justice Rose Bird.  Under her term, every Death Penalty appeal was granted.  Finally in 1986, the people had enough of her.  Under a recall vote, she was removed from the bench.


I never heard of that, but I love stories like that.

I never heard of that, but I love stories like that.


Me and you.

[quote author=Ły

Why not just let him die of natural causes? He is like 75.

Anyway, I don't like the idea of life in prison or death penalty, but it's better than no or limited punishment.  Letting a serial murderer out in the streets is more of an injustice than anything else, although I'm sure OJ for instance is miserable anyway. 

I never heard of that, but I love stories like that.



Me and you.


And people out here wonder why I claim that I "escaped from California (LA)".

California really is a case where the inmates are running the asylem.  You have so many special interists that are running the state, that it is in a permanent form of gridlock.  This was most noticeable during the power crisis 5 years ago.  Even while the state was suffering blackouts, they turned down 3 proposals to build new power plants.

Add to this, the tendency to "legislate through the judiciary".  If the voters pass a law that the far-left liberals do not like, they simply find a friendly judge who overturns the new law.  This has been done repeatedly through the years.  Even when something passes with an overwhelming majority (like Prop 187 or Death Penalty), it is not hard to find a judge who will overturn the will of the people simply because they do not agree with it.

And people out here wonder why I claim that I "escaped from California (LA)".

California really is a case where the inmates are running the asylem.  You have so many special interists that are running the state, that it is in a permanent form of gridlock.  This was most noticeable during the power crisis 5 years ago.  Even while the state was suffering blackouts, they turned down 3 proposals to build new power plants.

Add to this, the tendency to "legislate through the judiciary".  If the voters pass a law that the far-left liberals do not like, they simply find a friendly judge who overturns the new law.  This has been done repeatedly through the years.  Even when something passes with an overwhelming majority (like Prop 187 or Death Penalty), it is not hard to find a judge who will overturn the will of the people simply because they do not agree with it.


What is Prop 187? 

BTW Mushroom, mad props at political debates.  Unlike most Righters, you're actually smart and know the issues, even if I disagree with many of them.  Good job.  8)

What is Prop 187? 

BTW Mushroom, mad props at political debates.  Unlike most Righters, you're actually smart and know the issues, even if I disagree with many of them.  Good job.  8)


Thanks.  One thing I try to be is informed.  And I make my decisions based on the facts I can gather, not what I believe.  And believe it or not, I argue a lot of things that I actually feel the opposite about.  But I make decisions based on what I feel is best for all, not just what I think.

For one, you have to understand the California State Constitution.  It is unique in one way: it allows the citizens to make a change to the Constitution by an Initiative (most commonly called a "Proposition").  This was enacted in order to allow the citizens to shortcut (or override) the state legislature and governor if they were not doing what they wanted.  They are non-partaisan, and you can only vote "yes"  or "no".  There have been hundreds on the ballot over the years, but very few have ever been approved.

Among those approved are Prop 13 (property tax limitation), Prop 187 (reporting of illegal aliens), Prop 209 (forbidding of discrimination based on age, sex, or race), Prop 65 (clena water), Prop 210 (higher state minimum wage), and Prop 184 ("Three Strikes" law).  Once approved by the voters, they have the same power as a constitutional ammendment, and can only be overturned by another proposition to remove it, or by a formal ammendment by the state legislature and governor.

Prop 187 was a system to help report illegal aliens in the state of California.  The idea was that if somebody was stopped by police, requested welfare, attended school, or went to a hospital, then their immigration status was to be verified.  If they could not confirm their status, then that was to be reported to the INS.

But irreguardless of their being legal or illegal aliens, no services were to be denied.  Even if it was during a police stop, the person was not to be detained, simply reported to the INS for investigation.  And the campaign against it was very nasty.  The opponents tried to claim that it was a system to deny services, which is far from the truth.  And most of the citizens of the state agreed with it, because it passed with 59% of the population supporting it.

The new ammendment never took effect though.  Less then 3 days after it was approved, it was slapped with a restraining order.  And even though that order (and many others) over the years were overturned, it would simply be given another one.  Though approved in 1994, it has never taken effect, even after 12 years.

Heard, recently, how good old Sister Prejean (with her abolish the death penalty stand), was point blankly asked if Israel should have killed Adolph Eichman(?)..and she would NOT give an answer putting her in that honest postion of revealing if she said YES then she would lose her anti-death penalty supporters and if she said NO, she would lose the other  crowd she is straddling to keep supporting her, I guess the Jews etc ...   

Heard, recently, how good old Sister Prejean (with her abolish the death penalty stand), was point blankly asked if Israel should have killed Adolph Eichman(?)..and she would NOT give an answer...


This is something similar to what I stated in another topic, and I want to bring up here.

Consider this:  You will find few groups opposed more strongly then the Roman-Catholic Church to the topic Capitol Punishment.  I am sure that a large percentage of the followers of that faith oppose Capitol Punishment.

Go to any protest or rally to an execution, and you will see large numbers of Catholics there, protesting it.  Even the movie "Dead Man Walking" covered parts of this.  And I am sure that those who oppose Capitol Punishment love that support, both the Left and the Right Wing believers who oppose it.

So why do the Left Wing opponents then turn around and slander those of religious convictions when it comes to another issue?  Why do they call them the "Religious Right", simply because they oppose another kind of death, which they support?  They can say that Catholics are right-on when they oppose the Death Penalty, then turn right arounf and call them backwards Religious nutcases who belong to the Religious Right because they oppose abortion?

This is the kind of dichotomy that I just can't understand.  Either they are people who hold life as importantly as you do, or they are religious nutcases who are dogmatically locked to what their Pope (minister, bishop, clergy) tells them to believe.  How can somebody be an Ally one monment, and an enemy the other?

This is not intended to sound mean, or devisive, I am really curious.  When you agree one one topic, how can you turn around and attack a group on another topic, just because you disagree on a different topic?

This is something similar to what I stated in another topic, and I want to bring up here.

Consider this:  You will find few groups opposed more strongly then the Roman-Catholic Church to the topic Capitol Punishment.  I am sure that a large percentage of the followers of that faith oppose Capitol Punishment.

Go to any protest or rally to an execution, and you will see large numbers of Catholics there, protesting it.  Even the movie "Dead Man Walking" covered parts of this.  And I am sure that those who oppose Capitol Punishment love that support, both the Left and the Right Wing believers who oppose it.

So why do the Left Wing opponents then turn around and slander those of religious convictions when it comes to another issue?  Why do they call them the "Religious Right", simply because they oppose another kind of death, which they support?  They can say that Catholics are right-on when they oppose the Death Penalty, then turn right arounf and call them backwards Religious nutcases who belong to the Religious Right because they oppose abortion?

This is the kind of dichotomy that I just can't understand.  Either they are people who hold life as importantly as you do, or they are religious nutcases who are dogmatically locked to what their Pope (minister, bishop, clergy) tells them to believe.  How can somebody be an Ally one monment, and an enemy the other?

This is not intended to sound mean, or devisive, I am really curious.  When you agree one one topic, how can you turn around and attack a group on another topic, just because you disagree on a different topic?



Do you know what's interesting?  The Left of the United States, or at least the Democratic Party, is not that opposed to the Death Penalty.  Their arguments stem more from race issues and being sure they're guilty, rather than actually being against the sentence a lot.  Of course, the Repubs are more for the dp (although some religious rightist groups actually strongly oppose DP), but many Lefters would love to see proven-guilty criminals fly.

This is something similar to what I stated in another topic, and I want to bring up here.

Consider this:  You will find few groups opposed more strongly then the Roman-Catholic Church to the topic Capitol Punishment.  I am sure that a large percentage of the followers of that faith oppose Capitol Punishment.

Go to any protest or rally to an execution, and you will see large numbers of Catholics there, protesting it.  Even the movie "Dead Man Walking" covered parts of this.  And I am sure that those who oppose Capitol Punishment love that support, both the Left and the Right Wing believers who oppose it.


'Tis an interesting issue that you have raised, 'Shroom.

Some people (typically Democrats) would like to paint the Roman Catholic Church as "right wing", mainly because of its steadfast opposition to abortion and contraception.  But when you look at the Church's teachings on economic issues, they would be seen as quite "left wing" by many Republicans.

And this is as it should be.  The Church stands for lasting values and as such has no need or desire to align itself completely with Republican or Democrat, Left or Right, Britney or Christina, or whatever.

(I now await the barrage of posts that accuse the Church of all sorts of nefarious activities such as priests who are child molesters and who have stolen from the collection, as if no Protestant Minister, Jewish Rabbi, Muslim Imam, or Athiest Leader has not done the same.  Bad apples abond everywhere.)

[quote author=Ły

Why not just let him die of natural causes? He is like 75.

Anyway, I don't like the idea of life in prison or death penalty, but it's better than no or limited punishment.  Letting a serial murderer out in the streets is more of an injustice than anything else, although I'm sure OJ for instance is miserable anyway.   
Well,his victims didn't die of natural causes.

Well,his victims didn't die of natural causes.


Well, my point is he's 75, practically dead anyway.  I couldn't care less if they executed him or not.

Also, what's up with this "eye for an eye" stuff some people are supporting?  Yes, what the killers did was unfair, of course, but a justice system does not exist to make law-abiding people happy, but rather to prevent and hopefully deter crime.  Revenge does not = justice.  Is it satisfying?  Often yes.  Is it right?  Well, it doesn't undo the crime.  Are we entitled to it?  Absolutely not. 

Well, my point is he's 75, practically dead anyway.
I'm sure that'd go down well if you said that to a 75 year old.

Well, my point is he's 75, practically dead anyway.


That is just screwed up.

My dad is 75 and, other than being blind, still in fairly decent health.  He'd kick your arse if he heard you say that (of course, that's depending on if he could find you ;)) ;D
;D

I've seen/met several over 70s who are just as active/etc as anyone over 40.