Sold – Bill Clinton Orders the Execution of a Convicted Murderer

The U.S. Supreme Court held capital punishment laws unconstitutional in 1972 and many states rushed to enact new ones that would make the death penalty permissible. Such a new law was passed in Arkansas and came into force on March 23, 1973. However, the first execution under that law would not come for some years.

Capital punishment has long been controversial. By 1988, public opinion seemed to have swung in favor, and George Bush very effectively used Michael Dukakis’s opposition to the death penalty to paint him as soft on crime in the presidential race that year. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton planned a presidential run in 1992 and was determined not to allow himself to be labeled that way; he took a stand supporting capital punishment in some situations. He ordered the first execution under the Arkansas law of 1973 – John Swindler was put to death on June 18, 1990. Three more men were executed on Clinton ’s order – Ronald Gene Simmons a week after Swindler, Ricky Ray Rector in January 1992, and Steven Hill in May 1992. However, there was actually a fifth execution ordered by Clinton .

William Frank Parker was twice tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for murdering James and Sandra Warren. His attorney appealed the death sentence and his execution was stayed pending his petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case. That Court denied the petition on October 1, 1990, and Clinton then proceeded to set the execution.

Document Signed on State of Arkansas stationery, Little Rock, November 8, 1990, reciting the facts of the case and the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene. "Whereas it has become my duty pursuant to law and official policy to fix the date for carrying into effect the sentence and judgment…I, Bill Clinton, by virtue of the power and authority invested in me by law…do hereby set the 5th of December, 1990, as the date upon which the Commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Correction will carry into effect the judgment and sentence of the Benton County Circuit Court by executing William Frank Parker at the place and in the manner prescribed by law."

This is the first time we have had nor even seen on the market a document in which an American president orders an execution, and this rarity is confirmed by a search of auction records over the past dozen years, which fails to reveal any having been offered for sale. Interesting, flaws in the trial and appeal resulted in postponement of the execution until Clinton had left Little Rock for the White House, so the execution, though ordered by him, did not occur on his watch.