In a strange twist, death-row inmate Clarence Ray Allen required two shots of potassium chloride to stop his 76-year-old heart when he was executed on January 18, 2006, for the deaths of three people he ordered to be killed. Allen, blind and confined to a wheelchair, had unsuccessfully petitioned for his life on the grounds that executing a 76-year-old man would be cruel and unusual punishment. His lawyers declared that “he presents absolutely no danger at this point, as incapacitated as he is. There’s no legitimate state purpose served by executing him. It would be gratuitous punishment.”
Strangely, Allen suffered a heart attack shortly before the execution which left him lifeless. California authorities revived the frail old man, so that he could be summarily executed the proper way. Prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon put it best when he explained, “At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of human life. We resuscitated him, then executed him.”
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Original Death Chamber at the Red Hat Cell Block, Angola, LA via Wikipedia Commons by Lee Honeycutt with usage type - Creative Commons License. March 28, 2010Featured Image Credit
Original Death Chamber at the Red Hat Cell Block, Angola, LA via Wikipedia Commons by Lee Honeycutt with usage type - Creative Commons License. March 28, 2010
