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no point in particular...i just find this to be quite odd:



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Senior Prisoner on California's Death Row Is Executed at Age 76

Associated Press

SAN QUENTIN, Calif., Jan. 17 -- California's oldest condemned inmate died by injection early Tuesday.

With the help of four prison guards, Clarence Ray Allen shuffled from his wheelchair to a gurney inside San Quentin's death chamber early Tuesday, a day after his 76th birthday. Although legally blind, Allen raised his head to search among witnesses for relatives he had invited.

" Hoka hey , it's a good day to die," Allen said in a nod to his Choctaw Indian heritage. "Thank you very much, I love you all. Goodbye."

Having suffered a heart attack in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

"We would resuscitate him," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon, then execute him.

But the barrel-chested prisoner's heart was strong to the end: Doctors had to administer a second shot of potassium chloride to stop it.

"It's not unusual. This guy's heart had been going for 76 years," said Warden Steven Ornoski.

Allen, condemned for ordering from behind bars a hit that left three people dead, was the second-oldest inmate executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed nearly 30 years ago. Mississippi executed a 77-year-old last month.

Allen's attorneys had pleaded with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Supreme Court to spare his life, saying that executing a man as old and feeble as he amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel, too.

Allen died wearing a beaded headband, a medicine bag around his neck and an eagle feather on his chest. Two Indian spiritual advisers visited with him in the hours before the execution. His last meal included a buffalo steak and Indian fry bread.

The family of one of Allen's victims, Josephine Rocha, said in a statement that Allen "abused the justice system with endless appeals until he lived longer in prison than the short 17 years of Josephine's life."
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for those with a.d.d. :

Having suffered a heart attack in September, Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

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ok, am i the only one who's confused here?

He was indian.. How is America's government's stance toward indians anyway?
Is it still illegal for them to walk some cities or to go to universities?

This is despicable, truly.

"If you are about to die naturally, we won't let you because we believe you are so evil that we have to keep you alive...to kill you ourselves."

Idiots.

-AC

essencially making you more twisted than the person who is in jail. some people are just stupid i suppose

oh yeah. link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011701327.html

this was in the paper the other day, apparently the case was a bit iffy as were the facts concerning his involvement. but from what i've read he was a gangster irrelevant of his connections to this particular crime (the killing of two people)

I guess its not justice if god deprives them off there kill...

This was so ridiculous that I laughed. Hard.

Oh, the irony.

I thought that people had the legal right to request no resuscitation or CPR or whatever if they stopped breathing and if their hearts stopped, and that such a wish had to be respected by those in the medical profession - legally binding in a way.

Originally posted by Imperial_Samura
I thought that people had the legal right to request no resuscitation or CPR or whatever if they stopped breathing and if their hearts stopped, and that such a wish had to be respected by those in the medical profession - legally binding in a way.

you do.. its called a living will or durable power of atty for health care.. my assumption is that (and i dont know this for a fact) since he is a prisoner he probably isnt considered a (for lack of a better term) 'full' citizen.. like when a felon loses the right to vote.. same kind of thing..

so yeah this is just idiotic.. had to move from his wheelchair to his deathbed.. makes a whole lotta sense

It might seem stupid, and I am greatly against the death penalty, but if you do have such a penalty, this logic is essential.

First of all, in any legal sense, a duty of care exists to the prisoner up until thje moment he is executed. Therefore, legally it would be impossible to line this up any other way.

But it is also very important morally. A person can be pardoned form the death penalty at literally any point beforehand- seconds before is possible.

If you introduce a precedent where you let someone die because they are due to be executed... well, you can see how that logic leads to bad places.

This reminds me of a scene from the great film Paths of Glory. A man who is sentanced to die and who has had severe head trauma and can barely stay awake, is carried out in front of the firing squad, and woken up so he could be awake for his death. Quite a disgusting scene in the film and extremely unsettling to think that, 50 some odd years after that film was made, the same thing still happens.

I'm pretty sure a DNR advance directive is legally binding on medical practitioners.