California's oldest death row inmate, a blind, partially deaf and wheelchair-bound convicted killer, has been executed minutes after the end of his 76th birthday.

Clarence Allen was put to death by lethal injection early Tuesday after failed efforts to convince Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the US Supreme Court that he was in such poor health that killing him would be cruel.

Frail, diabetic and confined to a wheelchair since he was revived after a near-fatal heart attack in September, Allen was executed in San Quentin Prison across the bay from San Francisco, according to Lt. Thomas Mullen.

The Supreme Court had refused to intervene on Monday, the panel of judges dismissing his claims that the death penalty being imposed on an elderly, sick and legally blind prisoner would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The federal Court also rejected Allen's argument that the 23 years he spent on death row was cruel and unusual.

Schwarzenegger had denied Allen's request for clemency three days earlier, one month to the day after refusing to halt the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a reportedly reformed gangster.

Allen was sent to death row in 1982 after being convicted of arranging the 1980 murders of three people from his prison cell in order to silence witnesses in another killing.

He was California's oldest death row inmate and the second oldest prisoner to be put to death in the United States since the US moratorium on the death penalty ended in 1976.

His death comes a month after the highly controversial execution of former gang founder, convicted killer and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Tookie Williams, which also took place at San Quentin.

Schwarzenegger weathered a political firestorm then, standing his political ground over the December 13 execution that caused an international stir after music and movie stars joined Nobel winners in a passionate campaign to commute Williams' execution.

On Friday, the celebrity governor made a similar ruling in the Allen case, saying the intervening decades had not reduced the gravity of his crime.

"Allen's crimes are the most dangerous sort because they attack the justice system itself. The passage of time does not excuse Allen from the jury's punishment," he wrote in a statement.

Death penalty opponents, minus the marquee star power, rallied on Allen's behalf, some holding a vigil outside San Quentin late Monday, but the execution has not resonated with the media and public in the same way Williams's death penalty did.

The families of Allen's victims, who were gunned down in a market in the central California town of Fresno, insisted he deserved to die, whatever his state of health.

The execution comes as the debate over imposition of the death penalty in the United States heated up after a DNA test last week confirmed the guilt of a US prisoner executed in 1992 for the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law.

Coal miner Roger Coleman had gone to his death maintaining his innocence, providing fuel for the anti-death penalty movement here.

Polls show that while most Americans still support capital punishment, the margin is dwindling.

A survey conducted late last year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed that 62 percent of Americans were in favour of executing convicted murderers, while 30 percent were against.

© 2006 AFP

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