Saved For Later, Never Eaten
The newspaper headline read “LOBOTOMIZED COP-KILLER EXECUTED”.
Ricky Ray Rector was executed by lethal injection on January 24, 1992. At the time of his arrest in 1981, Rector had shot himself in his head, causing brain damage. To save him, doctors then removed part of his brain in a bilateral prefrontal lobotomy. To stand trial, a defendant must be able to understand the charges against him, to assist attorneys in preparing the case. Many believed that Rector’s brain damage rendered him unfit to stand trial.
Nonetheless, Rector, a 40-year-old black man, was convicted of killing a white police officer and sentenced to death by an all-white jury comprised of six men and six women.
After his execution, guards on death row found the slice of pecan pie from his final meal untouched on a dish in his cell. During his decade behind bars, Rector always saved his dessert until bedtime. His lawyers and others contend that his untouched slice of pecan pie was proof that he did not understand that his life was about to end. The case of Ricky Ray Rector also brought into question the constitutionality of “death-qualified” juries, that is, juries which exclude anyone who says he or she is unalterably opposed to the death penalty.