The Governor has officially denied the clemency request of convicted murderer Clarence Ray Allen. Allen was sentenced to life in prison for commissioning the murder of his son’s girlfriend in 1974. Then, in 1980, he was convicted and sentenced to death for ordering the murders of eight
witnesses of the first murder from his cell. While killing the first of these targets, his hit man also killed two unconnected teenagers on the scene.
Somehow it is notable that Clarence Allen is the oldest inmate on death row, and is quite ill. I am not sure why either of these things would be reasons to commute a death sentence. If anything, his age is a living mockery of what the court system has done to the ability for justice to be carried out in anything remotely close to swiftness.
Pity not Allen, but the innocent victims of his cruel and calculated actions. To quote the Governor:
Good decision.
The real question is this — when is it EVER a good reason for the Governor to grand clemency for someone on death row? Especially after the five million run-ups through the judicial system that each of those convicted has had in the decades between their crime and their punishment?