Allen's attorney to keep up fight

By Crystal Carreon -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, January 18, 2006

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Hours after Clarence Ray Allen's death sentence was carried out at San Quentin early Tuesday, his attorney continued to work on a defense - to halt future executions.

"It took so long; he wasn't pronounced dead for about a half an hour," said Allen's attorney, Michael Satris. "We thought it was cruel and unusual punishment before he was put through that process, and now that he has gone through it, we know it was cruel and unusual."

Satris, who represents a handful of other death row inmates, said he plans to begin a preliminary review into why executioners had to administer a second dose of potassium chloride - the final chemical injected to still the heart - at 12:35 a.m., about 15 minutes after the execution began. He also wants to understand why it took a while for the elderly inmate to succumb.

Allen, who turned 76 on Monday, became the oldest inmate executed in California since voters restored capital punishment in 1978 and the second-oldest put to death in the nation in more than three decades.

Prison officials declared Allen dead at 12:38 a.m. - about 19 minutes after they began administering the lethal cocktail into his veins.

After the execution, Warden Steven Ornoski explained that a second dose of the chemical was not uncommon.

"It's not unusual," he told reporters. "This guy's heart had been going for 76 years."

A claim that lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment is not a novel argument in a state that has practiced this method of execution since 1996, after use of the gas chamber was barred, authorities point out.

Condemned inmate Donald Beardslee questioned the constitutionality of the punishment before his execution last year, and a 2004 civil lawsuit on behalf of inmate Kevin Cooper caused one U.S. District judge to call the issue "about as important and serious a matter as a federal court will ever consider." Cooper's claim, however, was rejected.

"Every reliable study done on the lethal injection process has concluded that it is a safe, painless and effective way of carrying out the punishment," said Nathan Barankin, spokesman for the state attorney general's office. "As a result, every court that has heard these challenges ... in California has dismissed these claims."

Barankin said every inmate responds differently to the chemicals, which is why it's hard to devise an average duration for an execution.

Last month, prison officials struggled to find a vein in Stanley Tookie Williams's left arm, and the inmate grew visibly frustrated at their efforts. After about 11 minutes, the catheter was secured into his arm, the execution resumed and Williams was declared dead about 15 minutes later.

In Allen's case, his defense attorneys had argued that the execution would amount to cruel and unusual punishment because of his advanced age and ailments. He had suffered a heart attack in September, was diabetic and was legally blind.

The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately disagreed.

Allen was sentenced to death for the 1980 shotgun murders of Josephine Rocha, 17; Douglas White, 18; and Bryon Schletewitz, 27.

Allen commissioned the murder of witnesses from his Folsom prison cell while serving a life sentence for an earlier murder conviction. He sought to have Schletewitz and his father killed in retaliation for their testimony during his trial.

Allen entered the execution chamber in a wheelchair shortly after midnight. Guards then assisted him to his feet and held his elbows and shoulders to keep him upright. Allen, wearing a beaded red, green and yellow American Indian headband and necklace with a blue prison uniform, shuffled to the gurney, a converted dentist's chair. He held a feather to his chest.

Once strapped to the chair, he lifted his head and looked for the witnesses he had invited. He was seen mouthing the words, "Where are you?" and "I love you."

Allen appeared calm as he placed the feather, white with dark tips, across his chest.

Medical officials managed to secure the intravenous catheters into Allen's arms within minutes - a catheter was in his right arm within five minutes; his left arm was prepared in about two minutes.

The execution began about 12:19 a.m. Within three minutes, Allen turned his head to the left. About 12:22 p.m., the feather on his chest raised with Allen's final breaths. He was described as turning ashen white, and then blue.

Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, who co-sponsored a pending bill to suspend the death penalty, said the experience was unsettling.

"He appeared elderly, feeble," she said. "I think that brings a host of ethical questions."

Family members of Allen's victims expressed gratitude that justice was served after nearly a quarter of a century.

About the writer:

• The Bee's Crystal Carreon can be reached at (916) 321-1203 or ccarreon@sacbee.com.