Today, United States District Court Judge Richard Gergel vacated the death sentence of Justice 360 client Johnny Bennett. The judge found Bennett’s due process rights were violated because (1) the solicitor improperly injected race into the sentencing phase of the trial (by referring to Bennett, an African American, as “King Kong” and making other racially charged… Read More →
News
Update on Senate Bill 553
We are pleased to announce that S. 553 was polled out of committee on 3/3/16 with a Minority Report attached; meaning that for this year, the Lethal Injection Secrecy bill will progress no further in the South Carolina Senate. Thank you to all advocates who contributed to continued transparency and accountability at the Department of… Read More →
A Call to Action
Call or email Committee Members today to voice your opposition to Senate Bill 553. S. 553 will undermine public trust and confidence by making execution information a Government secret. Exercise of Government Power Must be Transparent S. 553 would make the entire process of obtaining lethal injection drugs a state secret, even the amount of money the Department… Read More →
A Jury of Your Peers? Not Always in South Carolina
In November of 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in Foster v. Chatman, a Georgia death penalty case where prosecutors struck all four African Americans from the jury pool. As a result, Timothy Tyrone Foster, an African American man accused of killing a white woman, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to… Read More →
South Carolina Mirrors Nation in Decline of Death Penalty
America’s use of the death penalty declined significantly in 2015, according to a recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center. As of Dec. 15, 49 new death sentences have been imposed this year — the lowest annual number since the 1970s — and 28 executions have been carried out, the lowest number since 1991. The… Read More →
Close the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Recently, South Carolina schools were thrust into the national spotlight when a video depicting an encounter between a Richland County Sherriff’s Deputy and a 16-year-old African-American student went viral. The deputy, Ben Fields, has been widely criticized for using excessive force given that the student’s “offense” was using a cellphone in class. Others, however, believed… Read More →