South Carolina Ping
Posted on 01/02/2005 11:13:36 AM PST by Ellesu
A highly anticipated U.S. Supreme Court decision could result in the lives of at least three young S.C. murderers being spared:
When George Stinney was strapped into the electric chair 60 years ago, the Clarendon County teenager was so small his feet didn’t touch the floor. A mask covering his face slipped off after the first jolt of electricity.
The 14-year-old, convicted of murdering two girls, became the youngest person to be legally executed in the nation in the 20th century. Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has banned executions of defendants who were younger than 16 at the time of their crimes.
Now, the high court is considering raising the age limit to 18 in one of the most important cases to be decided this year. The nine-member court heard arguments on the case in October; a ruling is expected soon.
If the court sets the minimum age limit at 18, three of the 71 inmates on South Carolina’s Death Row would be spared the state’s ultimate punishment. Another who had been sentenced to death has been granted a resentencing hearing, though he remains on Death Row.
As of Sept. 30, 72 inmates on Death Row in 12 states, including South Carolina, were sent there for crimes they committed as juveniles, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization in Washington, D.C. That represents about 2 percent of the total Death Row population.
Since the death penalty was restored in 1976, 22 inmates who were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes have been executed, including one in South Carolina.
Families of murder victims are outraged that the age limit could be raised to 18.
“Does that mean that if you’re 17 years 11 months and X-days old, you’re good, and when you go to bed that night and you become 18, you become bad? said Kathy Smith Carpenter of Fountain Inn.
Her brother, Jerry Smith, 57, was gunned down in 2000 outside a family-owned convenience store in Spartanburg County. Eric Dale Morgan was 17 at the time of the killing; he was convicted in March and sentenced to death.
The three other S.C. Death Row inmates were 16 at the time of their crimes. Nationally, more than 80 percent of the 72 Death Row inmates in question were 17, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Most of the inmates are from Texas and Southeastern states. Zoe Sanders Nettles, chairperson of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Execution of Children, attributes that statistic in part to the South’s history of “bloodlust.”
“We don’t do that much for children in South Carolina,” the Columbia lawyer said. “The least we shouldn’t do is kill them.”
LONG DELAYS
Allen Powers, an uncle of Ted Benjamin “Benji” Powers, sentenced to death in 1996 for stabbing a 68-year-old Gaston man to death in the victim’s home, doesn’t believe his nephew is a killer. The Gilbert man also doesn’t think defendants convicted of killing when they were teenagers deserve the death penalty.
“Most of what they do starts out as mischief, and it ends up a terrible, unplanned incident,” said Powers, a former Richland County sheriff’s deputy.
Powers claims longtime solicitor Donnie Myers deliberately waited years before trying his nephew — 16 at the time his victim was killed — to make him look older to jurors. Ted Powers was tried five years after his arrest.
“They wouldn’t have seen a child; they would have seen a man,” Powers said.
Myers, who has won more death penalty convictions than any other state prosecutor, denies the allegation.
“I don’t care whether they look old or not,” he said. “The policy is to try to get to them as quickly as I can.”
Myers said he couldn’t remember why it took so long to try Powers. He noted that trials often are delayed at the request of defense lawyers. A review by The State of 23 capital murder cases handled by Myers show that he tried some defendants younger than age 20 in less than two years from their arrest; others took longer.
Calen Radwill is in the latter group. More than nine years after his arrest on charges that he stabbed a 15-year-old boy to death, Radwill, who was 17 at the time, is still waiting for a trial. Now 26, Radwill learned in 2002 that Myers’ office was seeking the death penalty against him.
Lawyers not connected with the case say it might be the oldest pending capital murder case in South Carolina. A court order prevents Myers and other parties from discussing the case.
MISSOURI CASE
In the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of Missouri wants the high court to overturn a ruling by its state supreme court that said executing a 17-year-old would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Christopher Simmons was 17 when he and a 15-year-old friend kidnapped a woman from her St. Louis area home, drove her to a railroad bridge over a nearby river, “hog-tied” her with electrical wire, wrapped her face with duct tape, then threw her to her death in the river, authorities said.
Simmons assured his friends that their status as juveniles would allow them to “get away with it,” the state said in legal papers.
In Simmons’ defense, his lawyers are contending that recent scientific research has shown that the section of the brain that controls “mature decision-making” is not fully developed in 16- and 17-year-olds.
“One of their hallmark traits is that they are a work in progress,” said John Blume, an appellate lawyer for Herman Hughes, on Death Row for killing a Calhoun County video poker worker in 1994 when Hughes was 16.
“The super-mature 17-year-old criminal is sort of a myth,” said Blume.
The Spartanburg County solicitor who tried Eric Morgan, disagrees.
“There are 17-year-olds who act like 13-year-olds, and there are 17-year-olds who act like 30-year-olds,” Trey Gowdy said.
Laura Hudson, a longtime victim advocate with the S.C. Victim Assistance Network, said she believes teenagers are more mature — physically and emotionally — than years ago.
“I have met 15- and 16-year-old boys who are 6 foot 3 and extremely knowledgeable,” she said. “Our world is just so much different now.”
ADULT CRIME, ADULT TIME?
The U.S. is the only country in the world other than Somalia to refuse to ratify a 1989 United Nations treaty banning capital punishment for those under 18, Simmons’ lawyers said in court papers.
South Carolina is among 20 states that allow the death penalty for defendants who committed murder when they were 16 or 17; 18 other states set the minimum age limit at 18, according to Simmons’ legal briefs.
Georgia and North Carolina have set the limit at 17 for most cases. An unsuccessful bill in the S.C. Legislature in 2001 would have done the same.
Zoe Sanders Nettles, whose group South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Execution of Children pushed for the bill, said recently the minimum age limit should be raised to 18.
But S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster said any person who “commits an adult crime deserves an adult penalty.”
McMaster said a South Carolina defendant cannot be sentenced to death without first being found guilty in a separate trial. In the penalty phase, jurors must find at least one “aggravating factor” before imposing the death penalty, and even if they do so, they are not required to give it. And judges can throw out death sentences under certain circumstances, he said.
But too often, being poor and black is a ticket to Death Row, said Julia Sibley-Jones, associate director of the S.C. Christian Action Council.
“A moratorium (on the death penalty) is needed because it is not fairly or impartially administered at this time,” she said.
Nearly half of S.C. Death Row population and about 70 of the overall state prison population is black, Department of Corrections records show. The state’s black population is about 30 percent.ANOTHER LEGAL TWIST
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 suspended the death penalty nationwide, ruling that it had been applied arbitrarily. Since it was restored in 1976, only one inmate who was younger than 18 at the time of his crime has been executed in South Carolina.
James Terry Roach, executed in 1986, was 17 when he shot two Columbia teenagers to death in 1977.
Anti-death penalty advocates said Roach shouldn’t have been executed, contending he was mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 banned executions of mentally retarded inmates.
Ten of the 71 Death Row inmates nationwide who committed their crimes as teenagers have asserted they are mentally retarded, including Powers and Hughes, said Teresa Norris, a lawyer with the Center for Capital Litigation in Columbia. But no state court has yet made that determination for any of the inmates, she said.
Hughes’ appellate lawyer, Blume, said a hearing for his client likely won’t be held until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the age issue.
Blume predicts the high court likely will raise the age limit to 18, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor casting the deciding vote in a probable 5-4 ruling.
Kathy Smith Carpenter hopes for the sake of other victim’s families that doesn’t happen.
“Does evil have an age?” she said. “If you should answer ‘yes’ to that question, would you want to exchange your life with any of those innocent victims’ lives?”
related links:
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546794.htm
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546795.htm
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546791.htm
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546809.htm
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/10546812.htm
A moratorium on death, how ironic.
I must be a cold-hearted jerk. I think the court is poised to go the WRONG direction in this case.
I firmly believe in holding criminals responsible for their crimes. If you are old enough to do the crime, you are old enough to do the time (or serve the sentence - even death). PERIOD.
SADLY, i'd guess that's too much to hope for!
free dixie,sw
I agree.
Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man."
Amen.
Fine, Lawyer Nettles. Let's do more for these deranged animals. Fix up your basement and let them all bunk downstairs with your valuables, sleeping children and wife upstairs. That should take them off the street at least until your family is found hacked to death. Register on FR and FReepmail me. I'll make a monetary contribution to help you out, with the stipulation that my money is used for funeral costs to bury your family first. Deal, Big Mouth?
Yea ok whatever. And all the events that take place while the "mature decision making" is developing indelibly is imprinted on the brain when it is "matured." A 16 year old monster is a 25 year old monster is a 40 year old monster.
If they'd just call in a post partum abortion, it wouldn't even make the headlines and the court would be all over it.
Amen!!
Oh Heaven help us! I wasn't supposed to go into my parents bedroom EVER and one time I went in there and tried on all my mom's jewelry. I also "borrowed" my cousin's camera once and my brother and I took pictures of each other and used up all her film. She was really surprised when she got the film developed. That's mischief. We didn't go murder the neighbors afterwards either.
the REAL solution to the problem is a FREE dixie republic.
free dixie NOW,sw
This is not a compelling argument, however, age should not be a factor and each case should be tried on its own merits.
Zoe Sanders Nettles, chairperson of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Execution of Children, attributes that statistic in part to the South’s history of “bloodlust.”
The South's history of bloodlust? I'm sure that this Nettle's person can't be from the South or else she has bought into the New England revisionist history of the War of Northern Aggression. Either way, she's way out to lunch.
“Most of what they do starts out as mischief, and it ends up a terrible, unplanned incident,” said Powers, a former Richland County sheriff’s deputy
Tell that to the victims of the drive by shootings or the guy who got gunned down in front of his store.
And even if it does start out as 'mischief', does that mean that society should turn a blind eye to the crime that was ultimately committed? By properly punishing these criminals we benifit society by removing these vermin from society, eliminating their dubious contribution to the gene pool (hopefully)and sending a message to other youths that some types of 'mischief' will not be tolerated.
Ahh, a fellow South Carolinian and a secessionist, I presume. I'm all for it, especially after the last election. Are you aware of the following secession site?
free dixie,sw
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