Death Penalty News

A South Carolina lawmaker wants the state to pay for those people it wrongfully executes, beginning with the family of George Stinney. A bill filed in the House of Representatives ahead of the upcoming legislative session would establish the George Stinney Fund, which would provide $10 million to families of those exonerated after being executed, no matter how much time has lapsed. The bill is named for the 14-year-old Black teen convicted in the brutal murder of 2 White girls in Clarendon County and executed by electrocution in June 1944 . RELATED |  He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old -- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century A judge vacated Stinney’s conviction in 2014, finding numerous instances of his constitutional rights being violated, from his arrest to an hours-long trial and conviction by an all-White jury only months after the girls were found dead. “We can’t do justice, because justice would be us resurrecting Mr. Stinney and all...

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster recently signed legislation that would allow the state to execute people by firing squad or the electric chair if chemicals used for lethal injections are not available. The death-row inmate would be able to choose between the other two options. It is sad that the US remains the one western nation still dedicated to this archaic practice. It is also particularly problematic given the racist realities of the death penalty. It is especially tragic that the legislators who voted in favor of this and the governor who signed it almost all claim to be Christians and pro-life, but deny the way of Jesus out of a desire to appear tough or appeal to some misplaced idea of justice. The United States is the only western nation, and one of the few democracies, that still actively practices the death penalty. In 2019, we were fifth in the world for executions behind China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt. Of course, none of these nations is known for its great human ...

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has signed into law a bill that forces death row inmates for now to choose between the electric chair or a newly formed firing squad in hopes the state can restart executions after an involuntary 10-year pause. South Carolina had been one of the most prolific states of its size in putting inmates to death. But a lack of lethal injection drugs brought executions to a halt. McMaster signed the bill Friday with no ceremony or fanfare, according to the state legislature's website. It's the first bill the governor decided to deal with after nearly 50 hit his desk Thursday. "The families and loved ones of victims are owed closure and justice by law. Now, we can provide it," McMaster said on Twitter on Monday. Last week state lawmakers gave their final sign offs to the bill, which retains lethal injection as the primary method of execution if the state has the drugs, but requires prison officials to use the electric chair o...

South Carolina, the state that carried out the execution of a Black 14-year-old boy in 1944, now wants to bring back the firing squad. The House voted 66-43 on Wednesday in favor of adding the option for death-by-firing squad to condemned inmates. The bill passed the state Senate in March, and the governor has said he’s eager to sign it.   Currently, prisoners on death row in South Carolina can choose to die by either lethal injection or electric chair—and that chair has a shameful history. In 1944, South Carolina wrongfully executed George Junius Stinney Jr., a young Black teenager, for allegedly killing two white girls, a crime he was proven innocent of 70 years later.  RELATED | He was 14 years, 6 months and 5 days old -- and the youngest person executed in the United States in the 20th Century Stinney’s execution was brought up during deliberations Wednesday by opponents of the death penalty, who discussed the horrors of Stinney’s execution. The boy’s body was so smal...

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina House voted Wednesday to add a firing squad to the state’s execution methods amid a lack of lethal-injection drugs – a measure meant to jump-start executions in a state that once had one of the busiest death chambers in the nation. The bill, approved by a 66-43 vote, will require condemned inmates to choose either being shot or electrocuted if lethal injection drugs aren’t available. The state is one of only nine to still use the electric chair and will become only the fourth to allow a firing squad. South Carolina last executed a death row inmate 10 years ago Thursday. The Senate already had approved the bill in March, by a vote of 32-11. The House only made minor technical changes to that version, meaning that after a routine final vote in the House and a signoff by the Senate, it will go to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said he will sign it. There are several prisoners in line to be executed. Corrections officials said three of South Car...

South Carolina is poised to make significant changes this year to the way it executes death row inmates, giving the state an avenue to use electrocution and adding firing squads as an option. A state House panel opted Wednesday to keep death by firing squad as an option for executions when it took up a Senate proposal that cleared the upper chamber last month.  The Senate measure, sponsored by former solicitor and state Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry, would make the electric chair the state’s new default method of execution but give death row inmates whose appeals have been exhausted the option to die by firing squad. Right now, death row inmates have the choice between death by lethal injection or electrocution. However, the state cannot currently carry out lethal injection deaths because it doesn’t have and cannot obtain the necessary chemicals. At the same time, the state cannot force someone to die by electrocution. “I’ve come before you and the Senate for several years now, 5 or 6...

South Carolina senators Tuesday added a firing squad to the list of execution alternatives if the state can't put condemned inmates to death by lethal injection. The state senate approved the bill on a key 32-11 vote with several Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal that would allow South Carolina to restart executions after nearly 10 years. The state can't put anyone to death right now because its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and it has not been able to buy any more. Currently, inmates on death row can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection, and since the drugs are not available, they pick the method that can't be used. RELATED | Constitution doesn't guarantee condemned inmates a 'painless death,' U.S. Supreme Court rules Firing squad allowed in 3 other states The senate bill keeps lethal injection as an option if the state has the drugs, but requires prison officials to use the electric chair if it is not. An inmate could c...

South Carolina is dusting off its electric chair and trying to restart executions in the state after going nearly 10 years without putting an inmate to death. A House Committee voted 14-7 on Tuesday to make electrocution the default for an execution.  The bill now goes to the House floor while a similar bill is on the Senate floor. Right now, inmates can choose between electrocution and the current default method of lethal injection. Because the state doesn't have the drugs to put an inmate to death, South Carolina is under a de facto moratorium on the death penalty. South Carolina last put an inmate to death nearly 10 years ago and its supply of lethal injection drugs has since expired. In the decade before that, the state executed 17 people. Inmates are reaching the end of their appeals, but executions have been postponed, prison officials said. Gov. Henry McMaster asked lawmakers to find a way to restart the death penalty in his State of the State speech last month. “We have a l...

After years without the drugs to do lethal injections, the South Carolina Senate has agreed to require condemned inmates go to the electric chair instead. South Carolina law has empowered residents of death row to make a choice between lethal injection and the electric chair since 1995, so the lack of drugs enabled them to stay alive by choosing injections.  Capital punishment essentially ended in 2011 in South Carolina, a state that had been averaging close to 2 executions a year. "He picks out the option that can't be carried out, extending his life indefinitely," complained a sponsor of the bill, state Sen. William Timmons. The proposal passed 26-12 on Tuesday and faces a last procedural vote Wednesday before being sent to the House, where it is expected to face even less opposition. South Carolina has electrocuted more than 200 inmates since first installing the electric chair in 1912, according to the Death Penalty Information Center , including 14...

George Stinney Jr. was electrocuted in South Carolina when he was 14. He died less than 3 months after his arrest for allegedly murdering two white girls. His trial took a day. An all-white jury deliberated 10 minutes. He was posthumously exonerated by a South Carolina court  in 2014. Read more . In 1642, Thomas Granger , 16, was hanged in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, for having sex with a mare, a cow and some goats. It was America’s first documented execution of a child offender and the debut of the juvenile death penalty . The practice would end 363 years later after the deaths of at least 366 child offenders — people under the age of 18 at the time of their crime. The youngest girl to be executed was 12-year-old Hannah Ocuish , a Native American child who was hanged in Connecticut in 1786 for murdering a 6-year-old white girl. James Arcene, a Cherokee, was the youngest ever to be condemned. He was hanged in Arkansas in 1885 for a murder-robbery he helped commi...

George Stinney Jr., wrongfully executed at age 14 by ‪South Carolina‬ A memorial service was held last week by family and friends of George Stinney Jr., wrongfully executed at age 14 by ‪South Carolina‬ more than 70 yrs. ago. They added George's face to the stone marker memorializing him. "Family members want all walks of life to know George’s story, so history may never repeat itself." Alcolu, SC (WLTX)- On Saturday the young boy, executed without a fair trial was honored with a memorial. George Stinney Jr. was 14-years-old when he was electrocuted in the connection of the death of two young white girls in Alcolu. George Stinney Jr. was convicted of killing 11-year-old Betty Binnicker and 7-year-old Mary Emma Thames in Alcolu. Three months after his trial he was executed in the electric chair. His name was cleared last year after almost 70 years. Now the family seeks closure. The memorial was organized by 'A New Day' or A.N.D. "...

Dylann Roof If prosecutors convict Dylann Storm Roof and then seek the death penalty—and despite calls from Governor Nikki Haley, it’s not clear they will —the Charleston shooting suspect could be sitting on death row for a long time. The last execution in South Carolina was in 2011, despite a list of 44 people awaiting execution. The pace of executions has slowed to a crawl, in a state that has put 282 people to death over approximately the last century. And the reasons that this slowdown has happened may also give prosecutors pause in this case. In its earliest days, South Carolina was notoriously expansive in its definition of what qualified for the death penalty; a slave could be put to death for destroying grain, for instance. It is still one of the top 10 states for per capita executions, following the Supreme Court suspension of the dealth penalty in 1976 and its subsequent reinstatement. But South Carolina’s relationship with capital punishment has gotten complicat...