State And Federal Info
Serial killer Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins, Jr., who grew up in an extremely violent household, attempted his first murder at the age of 13. He claimed to have killed many other people, but law enforcement authorities could not verify all those claims. In his autobiography, Gaskins said he had “a special mind” that gave him “permission to kill.” (Wikipedia). He was executed in the electric chair in 1991.
Susan Smith was convicted of murdering her two young sons by restraining them in their car seats and driving the car into a lake. She initially claimed that two African-American men had kidnapped her sons, but soon admitted to their murder. She was represented by prominent death penalty attorneys, who brought out facts about abuse she had suffered from her stepfather. Although the state asked for the death penalty, jurors returned a verdict of life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Michael Linder was sentenced to death in 1975 for killing a highway patrol officer. He was later found to have killed the officer in self defense and was acquitted in 1981.
Warren Douglas Manning was convicted in 1989 of murdering a police officer. The conviction relied entirely on circumstantial evidence, and Manning was acquitted in 1999.
Herbert Fielding introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty during every legislative session he spent in the South Carolina legislature. None of the bills passed either chamber, but during his tenure (1970-1973 and 1983-1992) the bills kept the issue alive in the minds of South Carolina legislators.
Although bills are introduced during nearly every legislative period that would expand the use of the death penalty (for example, by allowing ten jurors to impose the death penalty instead of twelve), so far those bills have been rejected.
Recent Legislative Activity
Mar 01, 2021
Frustrated by the inability to put prisoners to death, legislators in two states are seeking to jumpstart the execution process by changing the laws that govern how executions may be conducted. After gaining little traction in prior legislative se…
Lethal Injection
Dec 02, 2020
Saying that the state lacked the ability to carry out a lethal injection, the South Carolina Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled December 4, 2020 execution of Richard Moore (pictured). With no state executions …
Upcoming Executions
Nov 20, 2020
South Carolina has issued a death warrant to execute Richard Moore (pictured) on December 4, 2020, but, his lawyers say, the state has refused to tell him how it intends to carry it out. In a motion to st…
Mental Illness
Jul 27, 2020
NEWS (7/21 & 7/22/20) — Texas: Split panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit have upheld the convictions and death sentences imposed on Erica Sheppard (pictured) and Anib…
Conditions on Death Row
Apr 16, 2020
A federal district court judge has approved a settlement of a class action challenge to the conditions of confinement on Pennsylvania’s death row that officially ends the state’s policy of mandatory incarceration of death-row prisoners in permanen…
Representation
Mar 06, 2020
NEWS (3/6/20): The United States Court of Military Appeals has upheld the conviction and death sentence of Timothy Hennis, following his acquittal in Nor…
Mental Illness
Oct 09, 2019
The 2019 – 2020 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 7 with the Court declining to review challenges to death-penalty court decisions from a number of states and with the Court hearing argument in a Kansas deat…
Oct 03, 2019
Jurors in South Carolina report that they are experiencing profound psychological effects from their exposure to graphically violent images, testimony, and argument during the death-penalty trial of Tim Jones, Jr.
Intellectual Disability
Sep 30, 2019
NEWS — October 3 – 4, 2019: In the span of two days, three new death sentences were imposed and three executions were halted across the United States. …
Conditions on Death Row
Jul 16, 2019
Amidst an ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of South Carolina’s death-row conditions, the state has moved its death-row prisoners to a different prison. On July 11, 2019, the South Carolina Department of Correction…
