Does anyone remember the Rector case?

[Else You Are Mad]

If you don't know what I am talking about let me post this:

Notice how Clinton says he is strong against crime and wants to expand the death penalty


Now, watch this:

That is a law professor explaining the Ricky Rector case. Ricky Rector killed s police officer then shot himself and, because of his wounds, had an IQ of 70ish and was not competent to stand trial.
In sum, the end result was that Bill Clinton, for political reasons, decided to execute mentally deficient man to show he was tough on crime.

To be fair, he was obviously guilty and killed a cop but he may not have been mentally component to stand trial. And there is anecdotal evidence that after his last meal, Rector asked the guards to save his dessert for him.

[Punkingal]

1. i do, it was very sad.

He always saved his dessert, and he did that the night he was executed. He asked them to put away his pie for later.

[COLGATE4]

2. You are aware that Arkansas uses the M'Naughton rule

for determining sanity. As long as he understood that the quality of his action (killing the cop) was illegal he could not be found legally insane. Clinton didn't make the law up.

[Else You Are Mad]

4. Yeah, even if they used some form of the MPC or hybrid test

It still doesn't mean that he should have been sentenced to death. Life in prison? Yes, he deserved that. But not death, and it should never have been used as a political strategy for Clinton.

[COLGATE4]

5. Aren't you letting your opposition to the death penalty

lead you into blaming Clinton for it?

[Else You Are Mad]

6. Yes. I am.

But, I was in grade school when the case was politicized, so my opposition to it didn't make Clinton use the case to win votes. He ultimately is in the wrong for what he did.

[mmonk]

7. Does it mean a governor cannot issue a stay?

[Else You Are Mad]

10. Nope, it is just a rule of evidence...

So, Clinton could have...

But he had an election to win!

[COLGATE4]

15. No, the governor may issue a stay. But to do so there

should be so compelling legal reason why he did so. The only 'defense' for this fellow seems to be that he was of somewhat limited intelligence. Since that didn't qualify him to plead 'not guilty by reason of mental defect or insanity', Clinton would have had to pardon him 'just because'. Not an easy call to make. I can see why he didn't. Particularly now when even this sad case is being dragged out with the sole intention of smearing the Clintons.

[farleftlib]

16. McNaughton Rule is for determining sanity in the trial phase.

There is a two-pronged test used to determine competency to be executed--the prisoner must be deemed capable of understanding why he is being executed and the effect execution will have..

Rector was saving his dessert to eat after the execution. Hence he should not have been put to death.

[COLGATE4]

17. I don't think that the anecdotal "save my

dessert" would have been sufficient to commute his death sentence based on insanity as defined by McNaughton. McNaughton requires that, "at the time of committing the act the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason... as not to know the nature and quality of the act... or if he did know it that he did not know what he was doing was wrong." It appears he 1) knew the nature of his act and 2) knew what he was doing was wrong.

[farleftlib]

18. Mcnaughton has nothing to do with execution

And if you think you're going to be alive after an execution, you obviously cannot pass
the minimum standard of competency. It's not anecdotal, he thought he was going to
live through the execution.

[COLGATE4]

19. McNaughton is the test for mental capacity or defect

sufficient to excuse a person from the death penalty so it has everything to do with this his execution. He didn't qualify under McNaughton. And, as far as the 'save my dessert' quote, for all we know he may have just made a bad joke.

[mmonk]

3. Yes.

[Cheese Sandwich]

8. Expand the death penalty! That's how we'll protect America.

[Else You Are Mad]

9. I didn't want to post that one...

And get accused of using the right wing smear tactic of quoting a Clinton, so I posted the whole thing.

[AzDar]

11. He wanted to save his pie for LATER... Anyone who had a hand in this is a fucking MONSTER..

UNCONSCIONABLE. UNFIT.

[Else You Are Mad]

12. But it was the 90s...

We were listening to grunge, it was a different time when the US was some dystopic mad max like war zone where rape gangs* roamed the land -- we had to say we wanted to expand the death penalty. Wait, no... That's not the case. We have to forgive it because it is not right to point out the Clintons horrible policies.


*note to everyone this is a star trek TNG reference so please don't alert*

[TSIAS]

13. I don't know much about the case

Other than the fact that he was borderline retarded. Clinton had taken a beating in the press over affairs and the draft, so he had to do something that would help his credibility with the public.

[amborin]

14. Yes, they traveled first class to witness his execution:

She and her husband traveled first-class to execute a black man with an IQ level of 70”

Mark is referring to Ricky Ray Rector, whom Clinton executed just before the New Hampshire primary in 1992. Rector had committed two murders, then shot himself in the head, causing permanent brain damage. A judge then ordered Rector to stand trial despite his mental condition.

A Yale professor studying the case wrote about how Rector honestly believed he would live to be able to vote for Clinton in the November elections:

That afternoon, after Clinton had refused all final entreaties for clemency, Rector sat with one of his attorneys watching, on a TV outside his cell, news reports of his impending execution, two hours away, intermingled with accounts of Clinton’s travail over the Flowers charges, and he abruptly announced, in a thick mumble, “I’m gonna vote for him, Gonna vote for Clinton.” It had always been his habit to put aside his dessert until bedtime, and after eating his last meal, of steak and fried chicken in gravy, with cherry Kool-Aid, he carefully set aside his helping of pecan pie, to finish later. One of his attorneys had earlier stated that Rector “thinks he’ll be back in his cell on Saturday morning.”

http://usuncut.com/politics/savage-hillary-takedown/