Lawyers finally got the chance to argue on behalf of George Stinney, 70 years after the 14-year-old black boy was sent to the electric chair for killing two white girls in South Carolina.

Tagged with: Death Penalty George Stinney retrial

A 14-year-old black boy executed nearly 70 years ago in South Carolina is finally getting another day in court, but the judge and a prosecutor aren't sure whether it is fair to judge what happened in a segregationist-era courtroom by modern standards.

Tagged with: Death Penalty retrial

For the second year in a row, South Carolina saw no executions in 2013. The state had no new death sentences in the last year, either.

Tagged with: Death Penalty

Leaving a judge to decide whether to throw out the conviction of a 14-year-old boy executed in South Carolina in 1944 reminds supporters of George Stinney of how the teen's fate was also in one man's hands nearly 70 years ago.

Tagged with: Death Penalty Execution

A Darlington man accused of ordering the deaths of two people in 2009 in Florence County has been sentenced to life in prison.

Tagged with: Death Penalty Murder

A Darlington man accused of killing two people in 2009 in Florence County is going on trial this week.

Tagged with: Death Penalty

An inmate on South Carolina's death row for more than two years is set to get a new trial after a state Supreme Court ruling that a judge should have let the man testify in his own defense.

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U.S. v. FulksA South Carolina defendant sentenced to death for his role in carjacking, kidnapping and the murder of two women in separate incidents during a crime spree after a Kentucky jail break cannot overturn his death sentence with claims of ineffective assistance of counsel; the 4th Circuit says none of the alleged errors by counsel would have made a difference in the outcome of this case.

Tagged with: Criminal Practice Death Penalty Habeas Corpus

Elmore v. Ozmint A mentally retarded African-American handyman who was 23 years old when he was accused of the 1982 murder of a 75-year-old wealthy white woman for whom he did odd jobs is entitled to a new trial, as his trial lawyers’ “blind acceptance of the State’s forensic evidence” demonstrated constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel, says the 4th Circuit in a 2-1 split.

Tagged with: Criminal Practice Death Penalty New Trial

DeCastro v. Branker The 4th Circuit upholds denial of habeas relief for a North Carolina defendant sentenced to death for his role in the fatal stabbing of a husband and wife who owned a mobile home park where a co-defendant had lived; none of the multiple allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel by the lawyer who represented defendant at trial, from his investigation of the case to his decisions about witnesses presented at trial and sentencing, support defendant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Tagged with: Constitutional Death Penalty effective assistance Habeas Corpus