Killer’s Death Penalty Upheld, 4th Since 1977

SAN FRANCISCO —  The California Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, today upheld the death sentence of Fresno murder-for-hire killer Clarence Ray Allen.

The decision is only the fourth death penalty upheld by the state’s high court since the 1977 and 1978 capital punishment laws went into effect. The high court has overturned 59 death penalties since 1977.

Allen was convicted of hiring Billy Ray Hamilton in 1980 to kill a witness to an earlier crime in which Allen was involved. Allen was in prison for another murder when the killing was arranged.

Hamilton, whose own death sentence is still under review, was convicted of shooting to death three victims in a supermarket at point-blank range with a sawed-off shotgun that had to be broken open and reloaded after each shot.

Author of the decision to uphold the death verdict was lame duck Justice Joseph Grodin, who was voted off the court in the Nov. 5 election largely for his record of votes to overturn death rulings.

Joining him were Justices Stanley Mosk, Malcolm Lucas and Edward Panelli.

Dissenting from the death penalty were Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird and Justices Allen Broussard and Cruz Reynoso.