State Atty. Gen. Urges Execution for Allen

The oldest convict on California’s death row should be executed for the viciousness of his crimes despite his age and failing health, the state attorney general’s office said Tuesday.

In a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s office argued against granting clemency to Clarence Ray Allen, who is scheduled to be executed Jan. 17 for ordering hits on three people in 1980 while he was behind bars at Folsom State Prison.

Allen, 75, claims his physical infirmities, including a recent heart attack, have left him nearly deaf and blind and warrant a reprieve. He is also in a wheelchair.

“It is completely irrelevant now to whether he deserves to die for his monstrous crimes,” Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Ward Campbell wrote to Schwarzenegger.

The attorney general’s office argued that because Allen had ordered killings from inside prison, keeping him alive could be a security risk.

“Mr. Allen has shown that imprisonment is simply no guarantee of public security,” Campbell wrote. He added that “in the case of Clarence Allen, life imprisonment is simply not a sufficient deterrent.”

Schwarzenegger has turned down all three requests for clemency he has received since becoming governor, including one earlier this month from Crips co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, who was executed last week.

Allen was sentenced to death for hiring a hit man who murdered three people at a Fresno market. Allen, who was already in prison for murder, had the trio killed because he feared their testimony would hurt his chances of prevailing on appeal, prosecutors said.

The convicted hit man, Billy Ray Hamilton, also is on death row. Prosecutors said Hamilton was following Allen’s orders when he killed Bryon Schletewitz, Douglas Scott White and Josephine Rocha.