Death Penalty---Justice Or Revenge?

California coreection authorities executed a blind, deaf, wheelchair bound prisoner by the name of Clarence Ray Allen. If anything proves that the death penalty is a monumental error on the part of our society it is this case.

Yes--He was convicted of horrible crimes. Yes--be was not a model example of human behavior. Yes--anytime a person is murdered it causes a hole in the victims family along with much grief and sorrow. Is grief and sorrow a reason for revenge? I don't believe they are.

As a society we need penal institutions to protect us from those who would prey on us and harm us. We need to have the ability to separate out those incapable of conforming to just laws of human behavior. Sometimes a stint in the pokey will be enough for a person to re-habilitate themselves. Nobody and no system can do this for a person. All behavior changes come from within.

There are some like Mr. Allen who commit savage and brutal attacks which require special attention. We have the modern means to remove them forever from society and eliminate their ability forever to afflict others with more harm.

Taking their lives however is not a just or moral action. Many probably feel like wringing the neck of a person who causes so much grief. This anger however-- if reduced to legal action through legislative laws can morph into the same type of activity with which Mr. Allen stands guilty of. Murder. The willfull taking of anothers life.

Life belongs to "GOD". He breathes us each into life and he takes this life back at in his own time. We live this life and all its laughter and sorrow from beginning to end. We must deal with grief as well as we do with happiness. They are both parts of the human experience--lifes mystery. Suffering and murder are a part of this fallen state we live in. We must learn to deal with it. And in the case of people like Mr. Allen--putting him permanently away where he can ponder his crimes, rehabilitate or not his own being, and await his final judgement is moral and just. Certainly Mr. allen was not a threat to human life yesterday while confined to his wheelchair unable to see or hear.

Executing Mr. Allen did not remove a threat nor fill the hole created by his actions. Instead it now made us all agents of revenge. Revenge itself is a grievious sin. So now we get to deal the sin society has visited us each with. The sin of taking anothers life. I don't know what "GOD" will say to me over Mr. Allens death. Or the death of so many more executed prisoners. But I feel he will view it as a failure on my part and yours to deal with lifes mystery of grief and angerby intruding into his domain of life and death.

Justice is taking legal action to prevent a person from continuing illegal activity through fines and incarceration. Revenge accomplishes none of this. Revenge is a sin.

OK Yodi, help me pull in the soapbox and we can now go for a walk.







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Calif. Executes Oldest Death Row Inmate

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) - California executed its oldest death row inmate early Tuesday, minutes after his 76th birthday, despite arguments that putting to death an elderly, blind and wheelchair-bound man was cruel and unusual punishment.

Clarence Ray Allen was pronounced dead at 12:38 a.m. at San Quentin State Prison. He became the second-oldest inmate put to death nationally since the Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976.

Allen, who was blind and mostly deaf, suffered from diabetes and had a nearly fatal heart attack in September only to be revived and returned to death row, was assisted into the death chamber by four large correctional officers and lifted out of his wheelchair.

His lawyers had raised two claims never before endorsed by the high court: that executing a frail old man would violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel as well.


(AP) Death penalty opponent Linda Avalos gives the peace sign as she holds a sign in front of San...
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The high court rejected his requests for a stay of execution about 10 hours before he was to be put to death. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger denied Allen clemency Friday.

Allen went to prison for having his teenage son's 17-year-old girlfriend murdered for fear she would tell police about a grocery-store burglary. While behind bars, he tried to have witnesses in the case wiped out, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to death in 1982 for hiring a hit man who killed a witness and two bystanders.

"Allen deserves capital punishment because he was already serving a life sentence for murder when he masterminded the murders of three innocent young people and conspired to attack the heart of our criminal justice system," state prosecutor Ward Campbell said.

Allen expressed his love for family, friends and the other death-row inmates in a final statement read by Warden Steve Ornoski. Allen ended his statement by saying, "It's a good day to die. Thank you very much. I love you all. Goodbye."

The family of one of Allen's victims, Josephine Rocha, issued a statement saying that "justice has prevailed today."

"Mr. Allen abused the justice system with endless appeals until he lived longer in prison than the short 17 years of Josephine's life," the statement said.

Last month in Mississippi, John B. Nixon, 77, became the oldest person executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed. He did not pursue an appeal based on his age.

Allen's case generated less attention than last month's execution of Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams, whose case set off a nationwide debate over the possibility of redemption on death row, with Hollywood stars and capital punishment foes arguing that Williams had made amends by writing children's books about the dangers of gangs.

There were only about 200 people gathered outside the prison gates before Allen's execution, about one-tenth of the crowd that came out last month.