Ricky Ray Rector
Ricky Ray Rector (
January 12,
1950 -
January 24,
1992), was executed for the
1981 murder of a police officer Robert Martin in
Conway, Arkansas.
In 1981, Rector decided to rob a convenience store. During a stand-off, he shot and killed a civilian, and police officer Robert Martin. He shot himself in the head, but did not die. Later, his
I.Q. would be measured at around 70.
Rector was subject to a unique overlap of controversies in 1992 during his execution in Arkansas. A question of the morality of killing someone who was functionally retarded. An oft-cited example of his mental insufficiency is his decision to save the dessert of his last meal for after his execution. In 2002, the
U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of people with mental retardation in
Atkins v. Virginia, ruling that the practice constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Rector was black, adding to racial questions relating to the death penalty.
Bill Clinton returned to Arkansas to preside over Rector's execution during his 1992 presidential race. Many consider it a turning point in that race, hardening a soft public image.
Rector was executed by
lethal injection. It took medical staff, with Rector's help, 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 heavy weight and to his use of an antipsychotic medication.
Rector was the 3rd person executed by the state of Arkansas since
Furman v. Georgia, , after new capital punishment laws were passed in Arkansas and that came into force on
March 23,
1973.
*
Capital punishment in the United States*
Capital punishment in Arkansas
