COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the planned executions of two inmates by electrocution, saying they cannot be put to death until they truly have the choice of a firing squad option set out ...

Tagged with: death row

Days before what could be South Carolina’s first execution in a decade, the two inmates scheduled to die this month under the state’s recently revamped capital punishment statute want an emergency order to stop their planned electrocutions while they appeal ...

Tagged with: death row

COLUMBIA (AP) — A South Carolina judge on Tuesday refused to block two executions set for later this month as she considers a lawsuit over the state’s new capital punishment law, which effectively forces condemned prisoners to choose to die ...

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By MICHELLE LIU Associated Press/Report for America COLUMBIA (AP) — If Richard Moore is executed, he will have some say in how he goes — the electric chair or the firing squad. Moore is one of three prisoners on South ...

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s corrections chief has moved death row prisoners for the second time in two years, this time trying to answer concerns over inmate treatment raised in a federal lawsuit. In their new home, the 37 ...

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A man on South Carolina’s death row for 20 years for killing his parents refused to attend a hearing appealing his sentence because prison guards wouldn’t remove his shackles. James Robertson was taken Tuesday from death row in Columbia to ...

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Porter v. Clarke (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-076-17, 16 pp.) (Wynn, J.) No. 16-7044, March 24, 2017; USDC at Alexandria, Va. (Brinkema, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: Although defendant prison officials have substantially changed policies governing conditions of confinement for Virginia death-row ...

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned away an appeal from a South Carolina death row inmate who pleaded guilty to killing an off-duty police officer during a multistate crime spree in 2004. The justices on Tuesday left in ...

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Prieto v. Clarke, Director (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-041-15, 35 pp.) (Motz, J.) No. 13-8021, March 10, 2015; USDC at Alexandria, Va. (Brinkema, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: The 4th Circuit reverses a district court decision and says that Virginia’s policy of ...

Tagged with: death row solitary confinement

Most attorneys would tell you that trying to represent yourself in a murder trial, especially if you’re not an attorney, is a huge mistake. But it’s a mistake defendants have a right to make, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled ...

Tagged with: death row retrial