Too old and sick to die?

As detailed in this AP article, Clarence Ray Allen, the “75-year-old condemned inmate with a January 17 execution date, has asked the California Supreme Court to block his death penalty on grounds of his advanced age and serious illness.”  Interestingly, as the article notes, the California Supreme Court has ordered state prosecutors by next week to respond to Allen’s claim that it is “unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment to execute a person of his age and infirmities.”

As the AP article also notes, Allen’s lawyers have made similar arguments in his clemency petition to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  A helpful reader has sent me the clemency papers in the Allen case, which you can download below.  They make for interesting reading.

Clemency petition: Download allen_petition_for_clemency.doc

Clemency opposition: Download allen_opposition_to_clemency_petition.rtf

Reply to opposition: Download allen_reply_petition_clemency.pdf

UPDATE:  This Sacramento Bee article notes that Allen’s attorneys are claiming that “State executioners will be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act if they make the aged and infirm Clarence Ray Allen walk the final steps to his death.”  The also also discusses, and provides this link to, a letter  supporting clemency that “Schwarzenegger received from former California Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Grodin who, as a member of the panel in 1986, wrote the opinion upholding the defendant’s death sentence.”