Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has decided he will not hold a private clemency hearing for condemned inmate Clarence Ray Allen, who is scheduled for execution Jan. 17 for commissioning the murders of three people while he was behind bars.
Schwarzenegger did not offer a reason for his rejection, which came in a one-sentence letter from his legal affairs secretary to lawyers over the New Year's holiday. If the execution goes forward, Allen, 75, will be the oldest person killed by the state of California in the modern history of the death penalty.
Last month, Mississippi executed John Nixon, 77, who became the oldest person put to death by a state since 1941.
Allen is legally blind, has heart ailments and diabetes and uses a wheelchair. Allen's attorneys said in clemency papers filed Dec. 13 that he had a near-fatal heart attack in September, had been denied surgery for his heart and vision problems and was incapable of helping them with their petition.
Schwarzenegger has rejected three previous clemency requests, including that of Stanley Tookie Williams, co-founder of the Crips, who was executed in December after a failed campaign arguing that he had redeemed himself with anti-gang work from death row.
Julie Soderlund, a spokeswoman for the governor, cautioned against drawing any conclusions from Schwarzenegger's rejection of a hearing for Allen, saying the governor would consider the written material submitted by lawyers on the clemency request. The California attorney general's office is opposing Allen's bid.
Deputy Atty. Gen. Ward Campbell agreed the move didn't necessarily telegraph Schwarzenegger's intentions.
"The governor may have learned what is useful to him and what is not" in considering the three prior clemency applications, Campbell said.
Michael Satris, a Bolinas, Calif., attorney who has represented Allen for a number of years, said the rejection "has increased our concerns about the fundamental unfairness of the whole clemency proceeding."
Late last year, Satris and attorneys from Morrison and Foerster, a large San Francisco-based law firm, unsuccessfully petitioned a federal district court judge in San Francisco to delay Allen's execution because of his health and what they said was poor treatment by prison officials.
The attorneys on Dec. 27 also filed a habeas corpus petition in the California Supreme Court, contending that it would violate the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone so old and infirm.
