Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Magic Bus, Polly!, -and- Never Too Young


Magic Bus - girlfriend of vampire candidate fired
Polly! - talking parrot reveals secret lover
Never Too Young - 2-year-old girl called for jury duty

Clarence Allen was executed at San Quentin yesterday. He was pronounced dead at 12:38 AM. Allen went to prison for having his teenage son's 17-year-old girlfriend murdered for fear she would tell police about a grocery-store burglary. While behind bars, he tried to have witnesses in the case wiped out, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to death in 1982 for hiring a hit man who killed a witness and two bystanders.

His lawyers had raised two claims never before endorsed by the high court: that executing a frail old man would violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and that the 23 years he spent on death row were unconstitutionally cruel as well.

Allen deserved capital punishment, because he was already serving a life sentence for murder when he masterminded the murders of three innocent young people.

Clarence Allen was responsible for four murders but was too old and frail to be executed? Debra Lefave seduced her 14-year-old student but is too pretty to go to prison? As Robert Blake's Baretta character said, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time!"