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Thread: Sammie Louis Stokes - South Carolina

  1. #11
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    SC death row inmate convicted in murder-for-hire plot may lose chance for new sentence

    BY EMILY BOHATCH
    The Herald

    COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina death row inmate’s chances to receive a new sentence may be in jeopardy after a U.S. appeals court granted the state Attorney General’s request to reconsider the issue, according to court filings.

    After a panel of three appellate judges issued an opinion granting Sammie Stokes — convicted in a murder for hire scheme — a new sentencing hearing, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson successfully petitioned to have all 15 of the 4th circuit appellate judges consider whether Stokes should have a chance to receive a new sentence.

    The decision to hold off on the resentencing hearing came down Wednesday, almost two weeks after two of the three justices on a panel ordered that Stokes get a new sentence because his previous attorneys failed to present evidence that may have helped him during his original sentencing hearing. One judge, Judge Marvin Quattlebaum, issued a dissenting opinion, saying he did not believe the attorneys provided were ineffective assistance of counsel during the Stokes’ sentencing phase of Stokes’ trial.

    “Although the decisions were quintessentially strategic and informed by a thorough investigation, the majority determines that they amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. I disagree,” Quattlebaum wrote. “These decisions, according to our precedent, merit our highest deference.”

    In the majority opinion, Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote that Stokes’ attorneys had information about their client’s troubled childhood, but decided to withhold it.

    In their opinion, Gregory wrote that Stokes experienced both physical and sexual abuse at a young age. Both of his parents were “serious alcoholics,” and Stokes and his sister would also skip school to steal something to eat from neighbors.

    Stokes saw both of his parents die in front of him before he turned 14, the judges wrote. Stokes began using alcohol and drugs and dropped out of the school with only a ninth-grade education level.

    “According to the child development expert retained by Stokes’s federal counsel, these facts amount to an extraordinarily traumatic childhood that impaired Stokes’s future emotional regulation and social adaptation,” Gregory wrote.

    Stokes was sentenced to death in 1999 and has spent the past two decades on South Carolina’s death row. He was convicted of murdering 21-year-old Connie Snipes in Orangeburg County after he was hired in 1998 by Snipes’ mother-in-law, who paid him $2,000 to murder Snipes so she could have custody of her grandchildren, according to court documents.

    A jury found that Stokes raped, mutilated and murdered Snipes in 1999. A jury spent three-and-a-half hours deliberating whether to give him the death penalty, the Orangeburg Times and Democrat reported at the time.

    https://amp.heraldonline.com/news/st...253972708.html
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  2. #12
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    Application for stay mandate filed to Chief Justice Roberts by the state of South Carolina.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....lic/21a61.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  3. #13
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    Court won't revive death sentence for South Carolina inmate

    Fox 23 News

    WASHINGTON — (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea from South Carolina to reimpose the death penalty on a South Carolina inmate whose death sentence stood for two decades until a federal appeals court threw it out in August.

    Chief Justice John Roberts did not comment in denying the state's request to stop the clock on a lower court order in favor of inmate Sammie Lee Stokes. The order requires the state to conduct a new sentencing hearing for Stokes, if it wants jurors to again sentence him to death. Otherwise, Stokes will spend the rest of his life in prison.

    He was sentenced to death in 1999 for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Connie Snipes in Orangeburg County.

    Evidence at the trial showed he was paid $2,000 by the victim’s mother-in-law, who planned to take custody of her grandchildren once Snipes was dead.

    Stokes' guilt is not at issue. Instead, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Stokes deserved a new sentencing hearing because two of his previous defense attorneys failed to present evidence of his traumatic past.

    Stokes suffered physical and sexual abuse at a young age, his parents were “serious alcoholics” and Stokes and his sister would skip school to steal food from the neighbors in order to eat, Judge Roger Gregory wrote.

    Both parents died in front of him before he turned 14, and Stokes began abusing alcohol and drugs, in addition to dropping out of school, Gregory wrote.

    South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson urged the justices to step in, writing that the appeals court engaged in inappropriate second-guessing of lower-court decisions long after the crime and several rounds of court proceedings.

    https://www.fox23.com/news/politics/...QWVLJGTIX73VE/
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  4. #14
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Everything I saw about Smith was Intellectually Disabled Black Man. Basically the same every time a black murderer is executed
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  5. #15
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    Petition for writ of certiorari filed by the state of South Carolina on December 21, 2021.

    State of South Carolina distributed for conference April 14, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/21-938.html

  6. #16
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    State of South Carolina distributed for conference May 26, 2022.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/search....ic/21-938.html

  7. #17
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    Petition for certiorari granted and death sentence reinstated. Case remanded to Fourth Circuit for further consideration.

    Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
    Case Numbers: (18-6)
    Decision Date: August 19, 2021
    Rehearing Denied: September 23, 2021

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...22zor_4425.pdf
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

  8. #18
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 26, 2022, oral argument will be held in Stokes' appeal before the Fourth Circuit.

    https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/cal/int...t252022ric.pdf

  9. #19
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    The panel hearing Stokes' appeal was made up of Chief Judge Gregory (Clinton), Judge Harris (Obama) and Judge Quattlebaum (Trump).

    https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/cal/int...t252022ric.pdf

  10. #20
    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    The Fourth Circuit has, once again, vacated Stoke’s death sentence and ordered the district court to grant resentencing.

    https://law.justia.com/cases/federal...023-03-22.html
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

    Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt

    I’m going to the ghost McDonalds - Garcello

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