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.
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…
Race
Jun 05, 2019
Four years after the racially motivated murders of nine African-American parishioners at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015, a new book by Charle…
Victims' Families
Jan 30, 2019
Stephen Curry (pictured, right, during a 2015 visit to the White House), star of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and executive producer of the upcoming documentary Emanuel, has publicly voiced his opposit…
Lethal Injection
Nov 22, 2017
Claiming that a lack of lethal-injection drugs was preventing the state from executing Bobby Wayne Stone (pictured, right) on December 1, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (pictured, left) urged state legisla…
Innocence
Aug 02, 2017
South Carolina prosecutors announced on July 25 that they would not appeal a trial court ruling, granting a new, non-capital trial to former death-row prisoner Kenneth Simmons (pictured). Finding that prosecutors …
Intellectual Disability
Jul 07, 2017
In 1989, William Henry Bell, Jr. was convicted of murdering an elementary school principal. Nearly 30 years later, South Carolina’s Free Times reports that the reversal of his death sentence because of intellectual disability provides evi…
Arbitrariness
Jun 01, 2017
Todd Kohlhepp (pictured) pleaded guilty to seven South Carolina murders on May 26, 2017 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 60 additional years for the kidnapping and sexual assault of surviving victim Kala…
Mental Illness
May 11, 2017
Newly unsealed psychiatric evaluations and court transcripts in the case of Dylann Roof (pictured) — sentenced to death for the racially motivated killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina — rais…
Mental Illness
Feb 03, 2017
Bills to exempt individuals with severe mental illness from facing the death penalty are expected in at least seven states in 2017. Legislators in Idaho, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio
Representation
Nov 28, 2016
U.S. District Court Judge Richard M. Gergel granted a request on November 28 from Dylann Roof (pictured), the 22-year-old charged with the murders of nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, So…
