Bill Clinton Executed A Mentally Disabled Man

DEATH FOR THE MENTALLY DISABLED - When Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he oversaw the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so mentally disabled that he said he would save the pecan pie from his last meal “for later.” Rector possessed third grade writing skills.

In 2002 the Supreme Court ruled that putting "mentally retarded" (words of the U.S. Supreme Court justices) people to death was “cruel and unusual punishment” and therefore unconstitutional.

But the justices left it up to the states to define what “retarded” meant, so Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton signed the execution warrant.

By 1992, Bill Clinton was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent" and indicated his support of capital punishment.

To make his point, he flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign to affirm that the execution would continue as scheduled.

Some pundits considered it a turning point in that race, hardening a soft public image.

Others tend to cite the execution as an example of what they perceive to be Clinton's opportunism, directly influenced by the failed presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis, who was successfully labeled by Republicans as too soft on crime.

Clinton's critics from opponents of capital punishment have seen the case of Rector as an unpleasant example of what they view as Clinton's cynical careerism.

The writer Christopher Hitchens, in particular, devotes much of a chapter of his book on Clinton, No One Left to Lie To, to what he regards as the immorality of the then Democratic candidate's decision to condone, and take political advantage of, Rector's execution.

Hitchens argues that among other actions, Clinton was attempting to deflect attention from the ongoing Gennifer Flowers sex scandal.

BACK STORY of Ricky Ray Rector

On March 21, 1981, Rector and some friends drove to a dance hall at Tommy's Old-Fashioned Home-Style Restaurant in Conway.

When one friend who could not pay the $3 cover charge was refused entry, Rector became incensed and pulled a .38 caliber pistol from his waist band.

He fired several shots, killing 31-year-old Arthur D. Criswell, who died almost instantly after being struck in the throat and forehead, also wounding 52-year-old William Hervey and his 23-year-old son Charles.

Rector left the scene of the murder in a friend's car and wandered the city for three days, staying in the woods or with relatives.

On March 24, Rector's sister convinced him to turn himself in. Rector agreed to surrender, but only to Robert Martin, a local police officer whom he had known since he was a child.

Martin arrived at Rector's mother's home shortly after 3 p.m. and chatted with Rector's mother and sister.

Shortly thereafter, Rector arrived and greeted Martin.

As Martin turned away to continue his conversation with Rector's mother, Rector drew his pistol from under his shirt and fired two shots into Martin, striking him in the jaw and neck.

Martin became the first officer of the Conway Police Department to die in the line of duty.

Rector then turned and walked out of the house.

Once he had walked past his mother's backyard, Rector put his gun to his own temple and fired.

Rector was quickly discovered by other police officers and taken to the local hospital.

The shot had destroyed Rector's frontal lobe.

Rector survived the suicide attempt and was put on trial for the first-degree murders of Criswell and Martin, as well as first-degree battery of the Herveys.

His defense attorneys argued that Rector was intellectually impaired and not competent to stand trial.

However, after hearing conflicting testimony from several experts who had evaluated Rector, Judge George F. Hartje ruled that Rector was competent to stand trial.

Rector was convicted on both counts and sentenced to death by the jury.

Rector was subject to a unique overlap of controversies in 1992, during his execution in Arkansas.

An oft-cited example of his mental insufficiency is his decision to save the dessert from his last meal "for later," which would have been after his execution.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of people with intellectual disabilities in Atkins v. Virginia, ruling that the practice constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Last meal

For his last meal, Rector requested and received a steak, fried chicken, cherry Kool-Aid, and pecan pie.

As noted above, Rector left the pie on the side of the tray, telling the corrections officers who came to take him to the execution chamber that he was "saving it for later."

The slice of pecan pie was not disposed of until Rector had been executed.

Execution

Rector was put to death by lethal injection.

It took medical staff more than fifty minutes to find a suitable vein.

The curtain remained closed between Rector and the witnesses, but some reported they could hear Rector moaning.

The administrator of the State Department of Corrections Medical Program said "the moans did come as a team of two medical people—that had grown to five—worked on both sides of his body to find a vein.

That may have contributed to his occasional outbursts."

The state later attributed the difficulty in finding a suitable vein to Rector's great weight and to his having been administered an antipsychotic medication.

Rector was the third person executed by the state of Arkansas since Furman v. Georgia, after new capital punishment laws were passed in Arkansas, which came into force on March 23, 1973.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2014/03/08/death-for-the-mentally-disabled

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