Execution ends 23 years on death row

WASHINGTON - California executed its oldest condemned inmate last night for arranging a triple murder 25 years ago to silence witnesses in another killing.

Clarence Ray Allen, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at San Quentin State Prison, less than an hour after his 76th birthday ended at midnight.

The United States Supreme Court denied requests to stay the execution.

"The court entered orders denying the requests for stays of execution and the petitions" for Allen, said a Supreme Court spokesman.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said that he would not spare Allen's life.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer issued a dissenting statement, citing Allen's age, bad health and the fact he had been on death row for 23 years. As well, Allen was legally blind, deaf, used a wheelchair and suffered from chronic heart disease and diabetes.

"I believe that in the circumstances he raises a significant question as to whether his execution would constitute cruel and unusual punishment," Breyer said.

Allen, who maintained he was innocent, was sentenced to death for ordering the killings in 1980 of three people while serving a life sentence for murder in prison.

Schwarzenegger said in a statement denying clemency to Allen: "His conduct did not result from youth or inexperience, but instead resulted from the hardened and calculating decisions of a mature man."

A 77-year-old man in Mississippi last month became the oldest person executed in the US since it resumed capital punishment in 1977.

- REUTERS