Too Old to Die?

   Clarence Allen met his maker yesterday, in spite of pleas he had made for clemency. He was killed by lethal injection, in a California prison, becoming the oldest person the state has executed since 1976. Allen was trying to use his age and state of health as a bargaining agent in his quest for the kind of treatment he never concerned himself with for others. Legally blind, hard-of-hearing, and confined to a wheelchair, he argued that he was too old and feeble to be executed.
   Allen was already behind bars for a killing when he extended his malevolent reach beyond those bars and ordered the killing of three witnesses to his crime. You just know he showed no concern for the health or age of any of the three whose lives he ended. Whether he handled the murder weapon with his own hands, or not, his hands were equally stained with blood. I am not surprised that such a one as Allen should ask for mercy, the one quality he never exhibited. It is the classic schoolyard bully behaviour, taken to violent adult extremes. I have seen it too many times. It never ceases, however, to make me shake my head in sad incredulity.
   Allen deserved exactly what he got, wheelchair or no. Perhaps, just to show no harm meant, the officials could have given the injection while he was still seated in his wheelchair, you know, to acknowledge his infirmity and the difficulty he might have had maneuvering himself out of the chair. We're all decent folk, right?
   As I say, Allen met his maker. I am sure his maker turned aside in disgust.