The State - News from April 19, 1987

Although he is scheduled to die May 22, Clarence Ray Allen is expected to avoid execution in the San Quentin gas chamber by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review his conviction. Allen, 56, was found guilty in September, 1980, of arranging a triple murder in Fresno from his prison cell, where he was already serving a life term for murder. Deputy Atty. Gen. Ward Campbell said Allen’s attorney had said he will seek a stay of execution pending further court proceedings. Allen is one of 297 men on San Quentin’s Death Row. The last execution in California was in 1967, when Aaron Mitchell died in the gas chamber for killing a police officer.