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.

The justices upheld a U.S. appeals court ruling that Ashcroft's directive was unlawful and unenforceable, and that he had overstepped his authority.

The Oregon law, called the Death with Dignity Act, was twice approved by the state's voters. The only state law in the nation allowing physician-assisted suicide, it has been used by more than 200 people since it took effect in 1997.

Under Oregon law, terminally ill patients must get a certification from two doctors stating they are of sound mind and have less than six months to live. A prescription for lethal drugs is then written by the doctor, and the patients administer the drugs themselves.

Ashcroft's directive declared that assisting suicide was not a legitimate medical purpose under the Controlled Substances Act and that prescribing federally controlled drugs for that purpose was against the federal law.

The directive threatened to revoke prescription-writing licenses for physicians and pharmacists who filled orders for life-ending drugs.

Writing the majority opinion, Justice
Anthony Kennedy said the federal drug law does not allow the attorney general to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure.

COURT'S CONSERVATIVES DISSENTED

The court's most conservative members -- Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and new Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush -- dissented.

Ashcroft reversed the policy adopted by his predecessor, Attorney General Janet Reno, during the Clinton administration. Conservative lawmakers and groups had opposed Reno's decision.

The closely watched case pitted the federal government's power to interpret and enforce the nation's drug laws versus the traditional authority of a state to regulate doctors and the practice of medicine.

Bush administration attorneys argued that federal drug law trumped the Oregon law on the issue of whether doctors may prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients.

But Kennedy, joined by another moderate conservative, retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and the court's four most liberal members, rejected the government's arguments.

He said the administration maintained that the law delegated to a single officer in the executive branch "the power to effect a radical shift of authority from the states to the federal government to define general standards of medical practice in every locality."

Kennedy concluded in the 28-page opinion that the text of the federal law shows that "Congress did not have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance."

Oregon had argued that Congress did not authorize Ashcroft to overrule a state's decision about specific medical uses of controlled substances.

Three Maryland jurisdictions -- Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Prince George's -- accounted for more than half of all school weapons incidents (the statistics include knives) in the state. Prince George's tallied 533 weapon suspensions in 2004-05, up 74 percent from 306 in 1999-2000. But the prevalence of weapons in the schools is only one reflection of the regional scene and that of the nation as a whole. Police in most jurisdictions report that the majority of killings occur after two men argue and one or both pull out guns.

There's an obvious thread here that members of Congress choose not to see: The all-too-free flow of handguns, a warped way of life that cows presidents and members of Congress who ought to recognize that the availability of handguns is murderous. The problem is that Americans own 65 million handguns and the only effective safety measure would be a ban on these made-for-murder weapons. As writer Jenny Price noted in a Dec. 25 op-ed in The Post, only 160 of the 12,000 guns used to kill people every year are employed in legitimate self-defense; guns in the home are used seven times more often for homicide than for self-defense.

Lawmakers know all this and know as well that handguns -- however exalted they seem to be in America -- should not be in general circulation. Political long shot that it may be, a national ban on the general manufacture, sale and ownership of handguns ought be enacted. It would not pacify kids or adults with violent tendencies, and it might not curb general criminal activity markedly. But it might well save thousands of lives. Handgun exceptions could be made for federal, state and local law enforcement and military agencies; collectors of antique firearms; federally licensed handgun sporting clubs with certain safety procedures; security guard services; and licensed dealers, importers or manufacturers that are determined to be meeting those needs.

Such a bill was proposed more than a decade ago by Sen. John Chafee (R-R.I.), who has since died. "I hear people say it's a radical proposal," he said then. "Well, I think to have the current situation is radical. No other country has anything like it." He described slaughter by handguns as killing in record numbers, threatening education and pushing the high costs of education even higher. So what's new today?

Meiwes was sentenced in January 2004 to 8-1/2 years for manslaughter, but the Supreme Court ruled last April that the judges had been too lenient and ordered a retrial.

He had admitted killing Berlin-based computer specialist Bernd-Juergen Brandes, 43, but was spared a murder conviction and a possible life sentence because the victim had demanded to be eaten.

Meiwes told the court, repeating much of his testimony from his first trial, that he had severed Brandes's penis at his request and that both had tried to eat it, without success.

Brandes steadily lost more blood and finally dropped unconscious, at which point Meiwes said he decided to pray.

"I didn't know whether I should pray to the devil or to God," said Meiwes, who appeared relaxed and eager to tell his version of events.

Believing his victim to be dead, he said, he plunged a knife into his neck. Only when he later saw his videotape of the crime did he realize that Brandes had still been faintly breathing.

Meiwes's legal team has argued the defendant merely acceded to Brandes's wishes and that his crime was only "killing on request," a form of illegal euthanasia that carries a maximum five-year sentence.

Prosecutors, hoping to secure a murder conviction, need to show that Meiwes killed Brandes not only because the latter had wanted to be eaten, but also due to a base desire of his own.

Germany's top criminal court said the first trial court had ignored the fact that Meiwes had filmed the slaying for later sexual gratification.

Psychiatrists have found Meiwes deeply disturbed but sane.

Meiwes's lawyers told the court last week that he had earlier released four other potential victims who had changed their minds at the last minute and initially driven Brandes homeward after the victim appeared to lose his nerve.

Meiwes, who met Brandes via the Internet, said he had been in contact with over 400 people who claimed they wanted to be slaughtered, although the vast majority were not prepared to fulfill their supposed fantasy.

Of the handful of men he met, Meiwes said, only Brandes had been a truly willing victim.