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Thread: South Carolina Capital Punishment News

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    South Carolina Capital Punishment News

    SC has 0 executions in 2010

    For the first time in seven years, South Carolina did not execute any prisoners in 2010.

    The Greenville News reports Monday that more than 50 inmates await their death sentence.

    South Carolina is among 35 states with the death penalty. The Corrections Department reports 42 people have been executed since 1985. The annual tally peaked at seven in 1998.

    The last time the state executed no one in a calendar year was 2003. At least five executions were stayed in 2010. That includes three who are appealing their sentences to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The Death Penalty Information Center reports that 46 inmates were executed nationwide last year. That's a 12% decline from 2009.

    Death penalty observers cite cost among factors for the drop.

    Information from: The Greenville News, http://www.greenvillenews.com

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    S.C. officials unsure how to continue executions after drug supply runs out

    Unlike many states that are scrambling for alternatives, South Carolina has a supply of a drug required for lethal injections.

    It is unclear, however, what officials in South Carolina will do when the supply runs out or even when the supply expires.

    The drug, sodium thiopental, is no longer legally available in America, even for the 35 states that use it to carry out executions. The only U.S. manufacturer of the drug ceased production in January and foreign manufacturers had previously stopped shipping it to the U.S.

    South Carolina, like the majority of the states that use lethal injection, requires three drugs in a series to perform executions.

    Sodium thiopental is administered first to induce unconsciousness, followed by pancuronium bromide to cause paralysis. The final drug, potassium chloride, is used to induce a heart attack with the goal of killing the inmate.

    The last U.S.-made batches of sodium thiopental will expire by the end of 2011, according to Hospira, the former U.S. manufacturer.

    Some states, including Nebraska and California, have used foreign manufacturers to get a supply that can last until 2012 or 2014. Those manufacturers, or the governments they operate under, have since put a hold on sales going to America, even for states.

    South Carolina Department of Corrections spokesman Josh Gelinas declined to give the specific expiration dates for the batches of the drug that South Carolina possesses.

    “Our supply does not expire in the foreseeable future,” Gelinas said, in an e-mail exchange. He did not respond to several attempts to get an exact date for when South Carolina’s supply will expire, or the amount of the drug on hand.

    South Carolina requires the state Supreme Court to sign off on an execution one month before it happens.

    No one in South Carolina is currently scheduled to be executed, Gelinas said. There are 55 convicted people on the state’s death row. The last person executed by the state was in May 2009.

    There are two men from Anderson County on death row: Ramondeze Rivera and William H. Bell Jr. Rivera was sentenced to death in 2010 and Bell was sentenced in 1989.

    Two men from Abbeville County are on death row: Steven Bixby and John Kennedy Hughey. Bixby was sentenced in 2007 and Hughey in 1997. Jerry Buck Inman, from Pickens County, was sentenced to death in 2006. No one from Oconee County sits on death row.

    Gelinas said the issue of the supply of sodium thiopental has not delayed or otherwise affected any executions in the state.

    Shortages elsewhere have forced other states to delay executions or switch methods.

    Texas, the country’s busiest state for executions, has a supply that will expire in March. There are Texas executions planned for May and July as well as February.

    Mississippi and Missouri both have supplies that expire in March. Neither state has planned executions but Missouri’s highest court is considering requests to set executions dates for nine inmates and Mississippi has one inmate who has exhausted his appeals.

    Any attempt to use expired sodium thiopental would almost certainly bring a challenge from death penalty opponents on the grounds that the drug might be too weak to spare the condemned inmate from the pain of the paralyzing and heart-stopping drugs that follow.

    Seventeen states that use the drug have no supply at all: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. None of those states has an execution scheduled.

    The federal government and several other states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Virginia — did not respond to a request by the Associated Press or refused to disclose details about their supply.

    Gelinas said that South Carolina’s Department of Corrections does not plan any immediate changes.

    “We are aware of what is happening in other states and we are not changing our process,” he said.

    One option is being explored by some states.

    Pentobarbital, a surgical sedative that is sometimes employed in assisted suicides and is commonly used to destroy dogs and cats, was adopted by Oklahoma last year as one of three drugs used in executions. Oklahoma has used a pentobarbital mix in three executions.

    Ohio announced last week that it would become the first state to use pentobarbital all by itself to put inmates to death.

    The use of pentobarbital for executions has not been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which last dealt with the constitutionality of injection in 2008 when it approved the three-drug method used in South Carolina and most other states.

    In Kentucky, which has an expired stockpile of sodium thiopental, switching drugs requires an administrative process that typically lasts six months. Similar hurdles exist in California, Maryland and Nebraska.

    Gelinas said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control regulate the licenses and storage of the drugs but not the administration.

    South Carolina’s protocol calls for the three-drug mix.

    Gelinas said he would not speculate on what changes, if any, South Carolina would make to its execution procedures.

    http://www.independentmail.com/news/...cutions-after/

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    There is some glaringly incorrect information in this article. It is stated that Missouri has no executions planned when, actually, there's one slated to take place on February 9th. It is also written that "some states, including Nebraska and California, have used foreign manufacturers to get a supply that can last until 2012 or 2014. Those manufacturers, or the governments they operate under, have since put a hold on sales going to America, even for states." While it is true that European countries have attempted to block the export of sodium thiopental to the US, I have seen absolutely nothing to indicate that India, which has the death penalty, has attempted to restrict exports of the drug to America. An Indian company, indeed, has recently supplied Nebraska with a huge amount of sodium thiopental. This journalist really needs to get his facts straight.

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    New bill would make home invasion a specific crime

    A new bill up for debate by a South Carolina Senate panel would add a new crime to the list of offenses eligible for the death penalty.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday is set to debate the bill that would create a new crime of home invasion in South Carolina, punishable by a prison sentence of 20 years to life.

    The bill would also make someone convicted of committing a murder during a home invasion eligible for a death sentence.

    The bill is called the Home Invasion Protection Act.

    http://www.midlandsconnect.com/news/...0#.TzpOsYFFvqE

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    Talks delayed on South Carolina home invasion bill

    A South Carolina Senate panel's debate has been delayed on a new bill that would add a new crime to the list of offenses eligible for the death penalty.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday canceled a meeting at which members planned to discuss a bill that would create a new crime of home invasion in South Carolina, punishable by a prison sentence of 20 years to life.

    The bill would also make someone convicted of committing a murder during a home invasion eligible for a death sentence.

    The bill is called the Home Invasion Protection Act.

    Tuesday's meeting has not been rescheduled.


    http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/usa...xt|FRONTPAGE|s

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    SC prison that houses state's death row on lockdown during internal investigation

    A prison that's home to South Carolina's death row is on lockdown while authorities wrap up an internal investigation.

    Department of Corrections officials say Lieber Correctional Institution will stay locked down until Monday. Department spokesman Clark Newsom would not give details, only saying that there had been a "security related issue" at the maximum security prison but that no riot had happened.

    During lockdown, Lieber's 1,410 inmates are restricted to their cells.

    The prison near Ridgeville was locked down in January after a fight in which at least two corrections officers were injured and authorities had to use tear gas to restore order. Officials say inmates overpowered the guards and took their keys and a radio.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...ison-Lockdown/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Rate of death sentences, executions slows in SC

    The number of people on South Carolina's death row is at a nearly two-decade low.

    Just 51 people are currently awaiting execution. There were 72 people on death row at the end of June 2005, and the state has performed just 10 executions since then.

    Prosecutors in South Carolina didn't send anyone to death row in 2011, the first time that has happened since at least 1994. And South Carolina has executed just one inmate in the past three years.

    Prosecutors worry that complex death penalty trials are too expensive except in the most extreme cases. Also, state law has banned parole for life sentences since 1995, making "life means life" an attractive option for juries and prosecutors who can use the death penalty to leverage a guilty plea.

    Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/05/06/2...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

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    Thank you for the good news,Heidi (It is good news in my opinion when executions and handing out of death sentences anywhere that still has capital punishment either slow down or come to a stop) Of course,the inmate South Carolina executed,Jeffrey Motts,was a 'volunteer' for execution (i.e. he waived appeals of his death sentence before he was executed in 2011) and therefore does not really figure except for posterity purposes.

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    Senior Member Frequent Poster PATRICK5's Avatar
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    So, the fact that more innocent people will be assaulted, raped, murdered by thugs who should get the death penalty pleases you? Why doesn't that surprise me.
    Obama ate my dad

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    PATRICK5, I must remind you that violent crime rates,especially homicide,are actually lower in jurisdictions without capital punishment. Also,the US justice system still has work to do regarding rehabilitation of criminals,particularly since most of those on death row had prior criminal histories,many including violent crimes. The long prison sentences routinely handed out in the USA for such crimes should in theory help with rehabilitation,but do not in practice because the standards post-conviction systems in place to prevent reoffending are nowhere near as good as those in Western Europe,even Great Britain,my homeland.

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