Gov. Bill Clinton left the Democratic presidential campaign trail Friday to be in Arkansas for the scheduled execution of the brain-damaged killer of a police officer.
Rickey Ray Rector, 40, was to be executed by injection at 9 p.m. CST Friday. However, medical personnel were having trouble finding a vein in which to inject the solution, and at 9:45 p.m. the execution hadn't been carried out, prison spokesman David White said.Earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court without dissent denied a last-ditch appeals filed on Rector's behalf in state and federal courts.
Clinton denied clemency to Rector on Thursday.
Rector would be 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.
"I think the death penalty is a trump card for being tough on crime," said Kimberly Cook, president of New Hampshire Citizens Against the Death Penalty.
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 he's (Clinton) portraying himself as a moderate-to-conservative and the execution of the death sentence might be attractive."
Clinton has refused to talk about political implications of the execution. He was unavailable for comment Friday; his office and campaign staff said he wouldn't give any interviews.
The five-term governor has scheduled 68 executions during his 11 years in office. Only two inmates have been put to death during his administration, both in 1990.
Rector was sentenced to death for killing Patrolman Bob Martin of Conway in 1981.
After shooting the policeman, Rector shot himself in the head. The wound and emergency surgery that followed caused brain damage that officials say had the effect of a frontal lobotomy.
Defense attorneys say the brain damage made Rector incompetent to be executed. State and federal courts have repeatedly ruled that Rector meets the federal standard for competency: He understands what he did wrong and the extent of his punishment.
In the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Rector's attorneys said Arkansas case law provides a higher standard for competency: that the inmate be able to help in his defense.
Government doctors, who found Rector competent under the federal standard years after his conviction, have said he could not now help in his defense if he had the opportunity to do so.
Martin, 38, a 10-year veteran of the Conway police department, was killed March 24, 1981.