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South Carolina
News & Developments
News
Nov 15, 2023
Randomness and Prosecutorial Misconduct in Death Penalty Cases Highlighted in South Carolina

A recent article in the Post and Courier details research into the reasons why 18 death sentences have been overturned in South Carolina, finding one of the main reasons to be prosecutorial misconduct. Research found that 11 of the 18 prisoners received new sentences because of prosecutorial misconduct, while the other seven received new sentences after the decision in Atkins v. Virginia because they had intellectual disability.
Read MoreNov 10, 2023
A Veterans Day Review: Uneven Progress Understanding the Role of Military Service in Capital Crimes
In 2015, DPIC’s Battle Scars report brought worldwide attention to the issue of military veterans on death row. DPIC found approximately 300 veterans incarcerated under a sentence of death, representing at least 10% of death row, and many more who had been executed. Since that report, research and understanding about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), substance use disorders, and mental illness among veterans has only grown. A 2023 survey of members of the Wounded Warrior Project found that 76% of servicemembers who incurred a mental or physical…
Read MoreSep 21, 2023
South Carolina Ready to Resume Executions by Lethal Injection After Acquiring Drugs
On September 19th, 2023, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Department of Corrections issued a joint statement informing the public that the state is “now prepared” to carry out lethal injection executions, as they have retained the drug needed to do so. Gov. McMaster and Department of Corrections officials filed a brief with the South Carolina Supreme Court, notifying the courts of their procurement of pentobarbital, a sedative that can be lethal in high doses, and asking for a resumption of executions. In his press release, Gov.…
Read MoreApr 28, 2023
South Carolina Advances Legislation to Keep Execution Details Secret
Bills to hide the identities of lethal-injection drug suppliers and execution team members from the public have passed both chambers of the South Carolina legislature. The bills face a reconciliation process before one can move to the governor’s desk for signature. Proponents of the law say it is necessary because revealing such information might make executions difficult or impossible. South Carolina has not carried out an execution in 12 years. Opponents say the public has the right to know about government actions.
Read MoreApr 14, 2023
LAW REVIEWS — Collection of Articles on the Death Penalty from Leading Scholars
The following law review articles by several key death penalty researchers were recently published in 107 Cornell Law Review, No. 6, September, 2022. They cover a variety of issues, such as the interplay between race and capital punishment, the history of the death penalty, the federal death penalty, sentencing trends, and the federal court’s role in capital punishment:
Read MoreFeb 09, 2023
South Carolina Supreme Court Blocks Efforts to Conceal Lethal Injection Information
On January 26, South Carolina’s Supreme Court ordered the state to turn over information about its attempts to obtain lethal injection drugs, as part of a suit challenging aspects of the state’s methods of execution.
Read MoreOct 11, 2022
South Carolina Supreme Court to Hear Argument One Month Sooner on Constitutionality of Electric Chair and Firing Squad
The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear argument one month sooner on the state’s appeal of a trial court ruling that declared two of its statutorily methods of execution — death by electric chair and firing squad — unconstitutional.
Read MoreSep 09, 2022
South Carolina Trial Court Rules in Favor of Death-Row Prisoners Challenging Execution Methods
A South Carolina trial court has issued an injunction preventing the state from carrying out executions using a firing squad or the electric chair, ruling that those methods violate the state’s constitutional prohibition against “cruel, unusual, and corporal punishments.”
Read MoreAug 18, 2022
South Carolina Court Set to Rule on Prisoners’ Challenge to Electric Chair and Firing Squad Executions After Completion of Methods of Execution Trial
A decision on the constitutionality of South Carolina’s newly adopted execution methods now rests in the hands a trial court judge after lawyers for death-row prisoners and the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) presented four days of conflicting expert testimony about the amount of pain suffered during firing squad and electric chair executions.
Read MoreAug 04, 2022
As Trial in South Carolina Execution-Method Challenge Begins, Review of State’s Death Penalty Reveals System that is Biased, Arbitrary, and Error-Prone
As the trial challenging South Carolina’s execution methods began on August 1, 2022, a review of the state’s death penalty by the Greenville News revealed a pattern of discrimination, geographic arbitrariness, and high error rates in the implementation of the punishment. In a two-part examination, reporter Kathryn Casteel analyzed racial and county demographics on death row, reversal rates in capital cases, and the timing of death sentences to provide context for the state’s efforts to institute the electric chair and firing squad as its primary execution methods.
Read MoreJul 28, 2022
Federal Appeals Court Finds South Carolina Judge Ignored Uncontested Evidence of Mental Illness, Reverses Death Sentence
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has overturned a South Carolina death-row prisoner’s death sentence after finding that the sentencing judge in his case had ignored uncontested evidence of the defendant’s mental illness and history of severe childhood abuse and neglect.
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Timeline
1974 - South Carolina reinstates the death penalty following Furman v. Georgia.
2006 - South Carolina governor signs bill that allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for repeat child abusers.
2011 - Hospira Inc., the sole U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental, announces that it will no longer manufacture the lethal injection drug. South Carolina opts to use pentobarbital, instead.
2012 - Edward Elmore is released from prison after nearly 30 years on death row. He agrees to a plea deal in which he maintains his innocence but agrees the state could re-try him for murder.
2012 - Joseph Ard is released from prison after 11 years on death row after new evidence was discovered that corroborates Mr. Ard’s claim that the shooting death of his pregnant girlfriend was accidental.
2014 - South Carolina vacates the conviction of George Stinney, Jr., the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the last century. At 14 years old, Mr. Stinney was convicted by an all-white jury, after deliberating for ten minutes, and sentenced to electrocution for the killing of two young white girls.
2016 - The death sentence of Johnny Bennett, a black defendant condemned by an all-white jury, is vacated due to prosecutor Myers’ racist remarks regarding Mr. Bennett’s interracial sexual relationship with a white woman. Mr. Myers referred to Mr. Bennett as a “monster,” “King Kong,” a “caveman,” and a “beast of burden” in his closing argument.
2021 - The South Carolina legislature authorizes the use of the electric chair and firing squad as the state reaches a decade without any execution.
2022 - South Carolina completes preparations to execute the state’s death row prisoners by firing squad.
2022 - Death row prisoners ask the South Carolina Supreme Court to defer setting execution dates until the courts resolve pending legal challenges to the state’s controversial execution methods - notably the state’s authorization of execution by firing squad.
2022 - The South Carolina Supreme Court halts two scheduled executions, including one that would have been the state’s first execution by firing squad, amid ongoing legal challenges by death row prisoners over the state’s execution methods.
2022 - A South Carolina trial court issues an injunction preventing the state from carrying out executions by firing squad or the electric chair, ruling that those methods violate the state’s constitutional prohibition against “cruel, unusual, and corporal punishments.”
2023 - South Carolina Supreme Court blocks the state’s efforts to conceal information regarding attempts to obtain lethal injection drugs.
2023 - A bill to conceal the identities of lethal injection drug suppliers and execution team members pass both chambers of the South Carolina legislature. Governor Henry McMaster signs the bill just a few months later. Gov. McMaster and South Carolina Department of Corrections issue a joint statement informing the public that the state has obtained lethal injection drugs and is ready to carry out executions.
Famous Cases
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.
Notable Exonerations
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.
Milestones in Abolition/Reinstatement
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.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, bills to expand the use of the death penalty were introduced during nearly every legislative session, but were not passed. In 2021, after the state reached ten years without an execution because of the Department of Corrections’ inability to obtain lethal injection drugs, the state legislature passed a bill to allow executions by electric chair or firing squad, making the electric chair the default method of execution.
South Carolina Executions in the 20th Century (by Offense and Race)
Historical data on executions in South Carolina reflects the state’s centuries-long discriminatory application of the death penalty against African Americans. Black men, women, and children comprised 78.5% of the people executed in South Carolina in the 20th century. Three-quarters of those executed for murder in the 20th century were people of color, and 74.5% were Black.
When it came to offenses in which no one died, the link between executions and lynchings in South Carolina is undeniable. Black men accused of sexual indiscretions with white women were frequent victims of lynching. For most of the 20th century, South Carolina permitted the death penalty for rape and attempted rape but employed it almost exclusively against Black men. 92.4% of those executed for rape or attempted rape were Black. 87.8% of those executed for rape were Black, and only Black men or boys were executed for attempted rape.
Decade | Total Executions | Murder | Rape | Attempted Rape | ||||||||
W | B | All | W | B | All | W | B | All | W | B | All | |
1900-1909 | 4 | 26 | 30 | 4 | 21 | 25 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1910-1919 | 3 | 49 | 52 | 3 | 31 | 34 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 13 | 13 |
1920-1929 | 8 | 28 | 36 | 8 | 23 | 31 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
1930-1939 | 18 | 50 | 68 | 18 | 44 | 62 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
1940-1949 | 9 | 50 | 59 | 5* | 30 | 35 | 4 | 12 | 16 | 0 | 8 | 8 |
1950-1959 | 5 | 20 | 25 | 5 | 16 | 21 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1960-1969 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
1970-1979 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1980-1989 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
1990-1999 | 13 | 9 | 22 | 12 | 9 | 22^ | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total | 65 | 237 | 302 | 55 | 176 | 236 | 5 | 36 | 41 | 0 | 25 | 25 |
* Includes 2 white men and 1 white woman who were executed in 1943 for conspiracy to commit murder.
^Includes 1 Native American man who was executed in 1999.
Sources: For executions between 1900 and 1972 — Executions in the U.S. 1608-2002: The ESPY File, Executions by State. For executions between 1972 and 1999 — Death Penalty Information Center, Execution Database.
