Legalized killing requires official justifications. The execution of
Clarence Ray Allen was no exception.
A prosecutor explained that “he masterminded the murders of three
innocent young people and conspired to attack the heart of our
criminal justice system.” And California’s governor was stern when he
denied a clemency request for the 76-year-old prisoner.
“The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury’s
punishment,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said. Allen had been convicted of
enlisting a fellow prisoner to kill witnesses against him in 1980.
On Jan. 16, according to unnamed “officials” cited in a San Francisco
Chronicle account, the condemned man “ordered a final meal of buffalo
steak, Kentucky Fried Chicken, sugar-free pecan pie, sugar-free black
walnut ice cream and whole milk.”
Allen “was blind and mostly deaf, suffered from diabetes and had a
nearly fatal heart attack in September only to be revived and
returned to death row,” the Associated Press recounted. His last
breath would be determined by the state’s timetable.
Around midnight, Allen “was assisted into the death chamber by four
large correctional officers and lifted out of his wheelchair” -- just
before the lethal injection. Righteously deploring murder, the state
murdered again.
To recap, the prosecutor said that Clarence Ray Allen “masterminded
the murders of three innocent young people” and “conspired to attack
the heart of our criminal justice system.” What could an intrepid
prosecutor say about the machinations of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney as they pushed ahead for the U.S. war effort in Iraq? And why
shouldn’t rigorous investigations be underway to probe evidence that
Bush and Cheney have engaged in systematic lawbreaking?
Such questions should be loud, public and insistent. While people in
Washington’s highest places demand endless benefits of countless
doubts, we need to insist on accountability at the top of the U.S.
government.
A jury condemned Clarence Ray Allen despite the fact that he did not
pull the trigger on the sawed-off shotgun. The charge was that he got
someone else to do it.
President Bush doesn’t pull triggers. He commands. Like the official
lying that preceded the Iraq war and sustains it, the killing is
nonstop. And a constant media barrage conveys the deceptive
assumption that legitimate authority is giving the orders.
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Norman Solomon’s latest book is “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death.” For information, go to:
www.WarMadeEasy.com