Blind Killer, 76, Executed

A 76-year-old blind wheelchair-user who was also almost deaf was today executed in California after the US supreme court rejected an appeal that he was to frail to face the death penalty.

Clarence Ray Allen was sentenced to death in 1982 for ordering the murder of a witness to his murder of his son's 17-year-old girlfriend, who he had killed to stop her telling police about his robbery of a grocery store.

Allen was in jail for her murder when the subsequent killings took place. The hit-man killed the witness and two bystanders.

He was the second-oldest person to face the death penalty since the US resumed capital punishment in 1976. Allen's lawyers argued that execution in his frail state violated the US constitution's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, as did the 23 years he spent on death row for the killings.

The appeals were rejected 10 hours before Allen's execution at midnight local time (8am GMT). He was pronounced dead 38 minutes later at San Quentin prison, less than an hour after his 76th birthday on Monday.

Allen's heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him and returned him to death row. His final meal was Kentucky Fried Chicken, a buffalo steak, full-fat milk, black walnut ice cream and sugar-free pecan pie. Allen was diabetic.

The US supreme court has never set an upper age limit for executions or created an exception for physical infirmity. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California governor, and the state's supreme court also rejected calls to halt the execution.

Annette Carnegie, one of Allen's lawyers, argued that his frail state was the result of his imprisonment. "These infirmities are not simply the result of the passage of time or of old age, as some would suggest, but result from prison authorities' deliberate neglect of his medical needs while in the state's custody," she said. About two dozen people gathered outside the San Quentin prison gates as Allen's execution approached.

Jes Richardson, 57, told the Associated Press: "I pay taxes. I vote. It's murder and I feel because I'm a citizen of this state I'm indirectly responsible for that murder."

Before Allen, the oldest person executed in California since the reinstatement of the death penalty was a 61-year-old man put to death last January. He had spent 21 years on death row.

Last month in Mississippi, John Nixon, 77, became the oldest person executed in the US since capital punishment resumed. He did not pursue an appeal based on his age.