SACRAMENTO, Dec. 14 (UPI) -- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces a fresh quandary for the next inmate scheduled for execution -- a blind and ill 75-year-old man, a report said.
Clarence Allen, who has diabetes and suffered a heart attack in September, will turn 76 one day before his scheduled Jan. 17, 2006, execution by lethal injection.
Earlier this year, an appeals court said there was no doubt Allen ordered three Fresno, Calif., murders from prison in 1980 while serving a life sentence for another murder.
His lawyers Tuesday asked Schwarzenegger to grant clemency, saying like just-executed onetime gang leader Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the state gains nothing by executing Allen, whom they described as enfeebled.
"There hasn't been an execution in this country for more than 50 years of someone as old as Ray Allen," attorney Michael Satris told the San Francisco Chronicle.
A spokesman for the attorney general said the law requires people to pay for their crimes and ill health and age are not the issue.
