Editing Ricky Ray Rector (section)

==Execution==
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.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Frady |first=Marshall |title=Death in Arkansas |magazine=The New Yorker |date=February 22, 1993 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/02/22/death-in-arkansas |access-date=July 27, 2017 |archive-date=July 28, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728033012/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/02/22/death-in-arkansas |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Grant2012">{{cite book|last=Grant|first=Patrick|title=Imperfection|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Tb-15eMQpMsC&pg=PA82|year=2012|publisher=Athabasca University Press|isbn=978-1-926836-75-1|page=82|access-date=2017-12-18|archive-date=2020-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200324234840/https://books.google.com/books?id=Tb-15eMQpMsC&pg=PA82|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2002, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|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."<ref name="Grant2012" /><ref name=Hitchens/> The slice of pecan pie was not disposed of until Rector had been executed.<ref name="Clarence">{{cite book |last1=Lusane |first1=Clarence |title=African Americans at the Crossroads: The Restructuring of Black Leadership and the 1992 Elections |date=1994 |publisher=South End Press |location=Boston |page=158 |url=https://www.questia.com/read/102120253/african-americans-at-the-crossroads-the-restructuring |url-access=subscription  |access-date=2018-08-26 |archive-date=2018-08-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180826113635/https://www.questia.com/read/102120253/african-americans-at-the-crossroads-the-restructuring |url-status=live |isbn=}}{{ISBN?}}</ref>

===Execution===
Rector was executed by [[lethal injection]]. It took medical staff more than fifty minutes to find a suitable vein.<ref name="Clarence"/> 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]]'',<ref>''Furman v. Georgia'', {{ussc|408|238|1972}}</ref> after new capital punishment laws were passed in Arkansas, which came into force on March 23, 1973.

===Role in 1992 presidential campaign===
By 1992, [[Bill Clinton]] was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent" and indicated his support of [[capital punishment]].<ref name="Hartman2015">{{cite book|last=Hartman|first=Andrew|title=A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fW__BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|year=2015|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-25464-7|page=121|access-date=2017-12-18|archive-date=2020-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200324234914/https://books.google.com/books?id=fW__BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA121|url-status=live}}</ref> To make his point, he flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign to affirm that the execution would continue as scheduled.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Soss|first1=Joe|last2=Langbein|first2=Laura|last3=Metelko|first3=Alan R.|title=Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty?|journal=The Journal of Politics|date=September 27, 2001|volume=65|issue=2|page=399|doi=10.1111/1468-2508.t01-2-00006|s2cid=38112237|language=en}}</ref> Some pundits considered it a turning point in that race, hardening a soft public image.<ref name="Jacobin">{{cite web |last1=Robinson |first1=Nathan J. |date=November 2016 |title=The Death of Ricky Ray Rector |url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/bill-clinton-rickey-rector-death-penalty-execution-crime-racism/ |access-date=14 March 2022 |website=Jacobin}}</ref> Others tend to cite the execution as an example of what they perceive to be Clinton's [[opportunism]], directly influenced by the [[Michael Dukakis presidential campaign, 1988|failed presidential campaign]] of [[Michael Dukakis]], who was labeled by [[Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] as too soft on crime.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=O'Connor|first1=Brendon|title=Policies, Principles, and Polls: Bill Clinton's Third Way Welfare Politics 1992–1996|journal=Australian Journal of Politics & History|date=September 2002|volume=48|issue=3|page=401|doi=10.1111/1467-8497.00267|language=en|issn=1467-8497}}</ref>

Clinton's critics from the anti-capital punishment sector 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.<ref name=Hitchens>{{cite book |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Hitchens|title=No One Left to Lie To |publisher=Verso Books |year=2000 |isbn=978-1859847367|title-link=No One Left to Lie To }}</ref>