TEXARKANA — A man convicted of raping and murdering a Miller County store clerk has failed to convince a federal judge he shouldn’t be executed because he is mentally retarded.
Andrew Sasser was found guilty of capital murder for the 1993 slaying of EZ Mart clerk Jo Ann Kennedy. U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren upheld the sentence in a 2010 ruling and now has refused to reconsider his ruling.
The Texarkana Gazette reports Sasser had served prison time for rape and had been free only a few months before killing Kennedy.
Sasser can take his appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that execution of mentally retarded convicts constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.