LinasK
Verified insider- Mark Dribin case
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POSTED: 4:29 pm PDT October 3, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO -- A leader of a Fresno crime ring who ordered killings from Folsom State Prison where he already was serving time for murder will likely be executed in January, authorities said Monday.
Clarence Ray Allen, 75, is likely to become the 12th inmate executed since California's voters restored capital punishment in 1977.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear his final legal challenge, 25 years after a hit man Allen hired murdered three people at a Fresno market. Allen feared the trio could hurt his chances of successfully appealing his murder conviction.
Hours after the high court's decision, state prosecutors petitioned a judge to set a Jan. 17 execution at San Quentin State Prison.The nation's highest court declined to review a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which concluded in January that Allen should die despite the poor performance of his attorney during the stage of trial when jurors decide a sentence of life or death.
The appeals court said his defense "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness."
The court, however, said Allen's viciousness, not his attorney's ineffectiveness, was what mattered.
The appeals court said it was inconsequential that Allen's attorney did little to prepare for the trial's penalty phase and failed "sufficiently to investigate and adequately present" evidence to sway jurors to render a judgment of life without parole.
more at link:http://www.ktvu.com/news/5052918/detail.html
SAN FRANCISCO -- A leader of a Fresno crime ring who ordered killings from Folsom State Prison where he already was serving time for murder will likely be executed in January, authorities said Monday.
Clarence Ray Allen, 75, is likely to become the 12th inmate executed since California's voters restored capital punishment in 1977.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear his final legal challenge, 25 years after a hit man Allen hired murdered three people at a Fresno market. Allen feared the trio could hurt his chances of successfully appealing his murder conviction.
Hours after the high court's decision, state prosecutors petitioned a judge to set a Jan. 17 execution at San Quentin State Prison.The nation's highest court declined to review a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which concluded in January that Allen should die despite the poor performance of his attorney during the stage of trial when jurors decide a sentence of life or death.
The appeals court said his defense "fell below an objective standard of reasonableness."
The court, however, said Allen's viciousness, not his attorney's ineffectiveness, was what mattered.
The appeals court said it was inconsequential that Allen's attorney did little to prepare for the trial's penalty phase and failed "sufficiently to investigate and adequately present" evidence to sway jurors to render a judgment of life without parole.
more at link:http://www.ktvu.com/news/5052918/detail.html