Death Penalty Takes On New Dimension in 2016 Campaign

Less than a month before the New Hampshire primary in 1992, Bill Clinton left the campaign trail and tended to a pressing matter.

Rickey Ray Rector, a convicted killer, was scheduled to be executed in Arkansas. Mr. Clinton, then the governor, returned to Little Rock and was present in the state when Mr. Rector was put to death, a detour that demonstrated his toughness on crime. Democrats “should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent,” Mr. Clinton had said at a debate a few days earlier, emphasizing, in general,...