Arkansas Executes Policeman’s Killer

VARNER, Ark. — Gov. Bill Clinton left the Democratic presidential campaign trail Friday to be in Arkansas for the scheduled execution of a brain-damaged cop killer.

Rickey Ray Rector, 40, was executed by injection Friday night. Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court without dissent denied last-ditch appeals filed on Rector’s behalf in state and federal courts. Clinton denied clemency to Rector on Thursday.

The execution was delayed for 50 minutes because medical personnel were not able to find a suitable vein in which to inject the solution, prison spokesman David White said.

Asked if he wished to make a final statement, Rector said, “Yes. I got baptized and saved.”

The execution began at 9:50 p.m. CST, and Rector was pronounced dead at 10:09 p.m. by Lincoln County Coroner Jimmy Hawkins.

Rector was the first black executed in Arkansas since 1960.

The execution could help Clinton distance himself from his party’s soft-on-crime liberal image, said some political observers in New Hampshire, site of the nation’s first primary, on Feb. 18.

Dick Bennett of the American Research Group, a New Hampshire-based polling company, said he believes voters are more concerned about the economy, but, “My gut reaction is (Clinton’s) portraying himself as a moderate-to-conservative and the execution of the death sentence might be attractive.”