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Crime & Courts

South Carolina Supreme Court Upholds Multiple Death Penalty Methods

Lethal injection, electrocution and the firing squad are all now legal means of dispatching condemned inmates in the Palmetto State …

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South Carolina’s supreme court overturned a ruling from one of its circuit court judges which had barred the state’s Department of Corrections (SCDC) from implementing a variety of capital punishments – including lethal injections. The unanimous decision reversing this ruling paves the way for the broad reimposition of the death penalty in the Palmetto State after a lengthy hiatus.

Writing for the court, justice John Few noted “South Carolina … has a long-established public policy of punishment that includes using the death penalty for the most heinous of crimes.”

“Because the death penalty is constitutional, there is necessarily a constitutional method of carrying it out,” he added.

Actually, the court’s opinion affirmed there are now three constitutional methods: Lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad.

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“We long ago faced this reality — that carrying out the death penalty necessarily includes the act of killing the condemned man,” Few wrote. “That doing this necessitates some degree of physical pain and suffering on the part of the man is of no surprise, and the necessity of such physical pain and suffering does not render the death penalty unconstitutional.”

“There is simply no elegant way to kill a man,” Few added.

Nonetheless, Few correctly noted “capital punishment (in South Carolina) has been shut down for years because of the unavailability of the drugs necessary to carry out the death penalty by lethal injection.”

Capital punishment in the Palmetto State has actually been an on-again, off-again proposition for decades. In 1976, a national moratorium on the death penalty was lifted via the U.S. supreme court’s decision in the case of Gregg v. Georgia. Since that time, South Carolina has put 43 convicted killers to death – including the notorious Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins. Seven of those sentences (including Gaskins’ sentence) were carried out via electrocution. The other thirty-seven were carried out via lethal injection – including the May 6, 2011 execution of 36-year-old Jeffrey Brian Motts.

No executions have taken place since Motts was put to death, however, and prosecutors have typically refrained from seeking the death penalty in high profile cases because of its lack of availability.

South Carolina provides for the death penalty in murder cases in the event a “statutory aggravating circumstance is found beyond a reasonable doubt.” These aggravating circumstances are specifically enumerated in the S.C. Code of Laws (§ 16-3-20) – and are determined on a case-by-case basis in proceedings held separately from the murder trial once a guilty plea or verdict has been entered into the record.

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Jim Griffin with Alex

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If a defendant in a capital case pleads guilty before trial, the sentencing decision falls to a circuit court judge. If a defendant is found guilty by a jury of his or her peers during a public trial, the decision is made by the same trial jury who heard the original case. As with the determination of a defendant’s guilt, any aggravating factors leading to a sentence of death must be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

South Carolina currently has 32 inmates on its “Death Row,” which is located at the Broad River secure facility just north of the state capital in Columbia, S.C.

In 2022, a pair of scheduled executions were halted after death row inmates successfully challenged the state’s new capital punishment law – which permitted executions by electrocution (or firing squad) in the event lethal injection was unavailable. According to S.C. circuit court judge Jocelyn Newman, those two methods “ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency.”

This week, the high court disagreed. In a concurring opinion, new chief justice John Kittredge expressly rebuked Newman – stating her ruling “made numerous findings regarding the alleged cruelty of each method of execution that are demonstrably incorrect.”

Last spring the S.C. General Assembly passed – and governor Henry McMaster signed – Act 16 of 2023, a shield law which provided for the “nondisclosure of (the) identity of members of an execution team and the acquisition of drugs to administer a death sentence.” Last fall, SCDC notified the court it had “secured the drugs necessary to carry out lethal injections” in the Palmetto State.

“The department’s lethal injection policy has been revised to provide for the use of a one-drug protocol,” a release from SCDC noted. “The new protocol is essentially identical to protocols used by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and at least six other states. Courts have upheld the use of this drug against constitutional challenges.”

Still, the court waited until it had addressed the constitutionality of the other methods of capital punishment.

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South Carolina’s electric chair sits at the Broad River Road correctional facility, location of the Palmetto State’s “Death Row.” (SCDC)

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The court’s ruling was unanimous, although two justices – including outgoing chief justice Donald Beatty – objected to the firing squad as a method of execution.

“(Newman) did not err in finding the firing squad has been — and continues to be — an unusual method of punishment and that it is unconstitutional under South Carolina law,” Beatty wrote in his concurring opinion.

Beatty further noted the fact that South Carolina can now once again constitutionally execute inmates via lethal objection removed one of the stated rationales behind “the decision to authorize the firing squad in this state.”

I have consistently argued on behalf of capital punishment being “broadly implemented” in response to especially heinous cases – like the brutal kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old University of South Carolina student Samantha Lee Josephson in March of 2019.

“There’s no point having a debate over the efficacy of capital punishment if it is only going to be carried out once a year using the most genteel of methods,” I wrote seven years ago in an expansive piece on criminal justice reform.  “There’s simply nothing to debate under these circumstances except that killing someone in America (has become) a ticket to stardom and ‘three hots and a cot’ for life courtesy of the taxpayers.”

In a follow-up column, I pointed out the establishment of such a societal construct “is not a deterrent (but) an incentive” to violent crime – one creating lasting societal problems that reach well beyond “the fates befalling victims.”

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Clearly, South Carolina's crime reports have borne witness to this reality.

I challenged state lawmakers in the fall of 2020 to "ensure SCDC is supplied with the drugs it needs to carry out lethal injections, and then to ensure the availability of other methods of execution in the event circumstances warrant."

For once, they listened ... and now the last impediment to carrying out these sentences appears to have been removed.

Executions won't restart tomorrow, obviously. There's a fifteen-day period during which a rehearing of the case can be requested - and a federal challenge is also expected to be lodged. South Carolina's condemned inmates shouldn't get their hopes up, though, as neither effort to undo this ruling is expected to succeed.

Governor McMaster hailed the ruling as "another step in ensuring that lawful sentences can be duly enforced and the families and loved ones of the victims receive the closure and justice they have long awaited.”

In brief remarks to members of the media, SCDC director Bryan Stirling confirmed his agency was "ready to carry out all methods of execution at this time."

Asked for his thoughts on whether the ruling was just, Stirling declined to offer an opinion.

"I'm carrying out the law," he said. "That's just my job."

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THE RULING...

(S.C. Supreme Court)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...

Will Folks (Dylan Nolan)

Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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2 comments

Squishy123 (the original) July 31, 2024 at 8:10 pm

Five convicts who have no remaining appeals… “Form a line!!!”.

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River Top fan August 1, 2024 at 12:57 pm

Fentanyl would work. It’s easy to get and democrats don’t care it’s killing people.

Reply

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