Legislative Activity - South Carolina (Death Penalty)?

Question

With which current issues does South Carolina legislation deal?

What legislative decisions have been made in South Carolina since the year 2000? Is there any pending legislation? Describe the legislation.

What is your opinion of the legislation you identified?

Answer 1

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry have signed into law legislation that allows proseuctors to seek the death penalty for repeat child molesters. The new South Carolina law allows a death sentence if the accused has been twice convicted of raping a child younger than 11-years-old. It also sets a 25-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for some sex offenders, mandates that people convicted of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree wear an electronic monitoring device, and requires registered sex offenders to update their address every six months. The Oklahoma measure makes the death penalty an option for anyone convicted of a second or subsequent conviction for rape, sodomy, or lewd molestation involving a child under 14. Oklahoma, South Carolina, Montana, Louisiana, and Florida are the only states to allow the death penalty for certain sex crimes. No one convicted of a sex offense has been executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the capital punishment 30 years ago. David Bruck, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, said the measures might actually put child rape victims' lives at risk. He notes, "The last message you want to give an offender who has the life of a child in his hands is you might as well kill the child because he'd already got the death penalty. This is a very stupid message." (Associated Press, June 8, 2006 and June 9, 2006). See Recent Legislative Activity. The constitutionality of the law is not clear because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty for rape of an adult is barred by the Eighth Amendment. (Coker v. Georgia (1977)).


In South Carolina, lawmakers have abandoned a legislative provision that would have allowed the death penalty for sex offenders convicted a second time of assaulting children younger than 11 years old. Legislators in the South Carolina House eliminated the proposal because it likely would have prevented a broader sex offender bill from passing through the legislature before the General Assembly adjourns on June 1. Opponents of the death penalty provision have said the state would face hefty legal bills to defend the law and that imposing the death penalty on this class of offenders would give them no incentive to spare their victims' lives. (Associated Press, May 21, 2006).

South Carolina Bill To Expand Death Penalty Draws Criticism
A bill to expand South Carolina's capital punishment statute so that those who are convicted a second time of raping children under 11 are eligible for the death penalty has drawn criticism from those who worry the bill may result in unintended consequences. Fears that the legislation will lead to family members refusing to come forward regarding intra-family offenses and that it may also result in more rape victims being killed are among the chief concerns regarding the proposed legislation. The bill has been approved by the South Carolina Senate and will soon be considered by legislators in the House. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the pro-death penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in California, said that a state shouldn't impose the death penalty for twice convicted sex offenders "simply to give the rapist an incentive not to kill the victim." DPIC Executive Director Richard Dieter agreed, adding, "It may actually create more death because the person facing the death penlaty for this kind of offense might be inclined to say, 'No greater punishment incurred if I kill the victim'."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the death penalty can't be used in cases involving adult rapes, but it has not weighed in the issue of imposing the death penalty on those who commit child rapes. South Carolina Representative Fletcher Smith said that he believes the proposed bill won't meet constitutional standards regarding the death penalty because a death is not involved.

Answer 2

There is a lot going on. If you visit www.deathpenaltyinfo.org and do a search (left side column) for South Carolina you can find it quite easily.

South Carolina has had 2 exonerations and 37 executions in recent years. Nationally, there have been 124 exonerations and 1037 executions. South Carolina is below average in the number of exonerations. The question is whether this is due to lack of resources to look into instances of questionable verdicts.


South Carolina has had problems with the lethal injection procedure (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1417&scid=64). If the inmate is conscious during the last part of the procedure, as seems to be indicated) the final drug leads to an excrutiating suffocation, but because of the second drug (a paralytic) , none of the witnesses see this.

Take a look at the case of Kelly v. South Carolina on the unconstitutionaly of S. Car. sentencing procedures. (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=38&did=1052)

You will find a wealth of information at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org

The system has a lot of problematic aspects--

Risks of executing innocent people-
124 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence. DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and isn’t a guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

We have a good alternative. Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states, including South Carolina. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

Death penalty costs. The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process. When the death penalty is a possible sentence, extra costs start mounting up before trial, continue through the uniquely complicated trial in death penalty cases (actually 2 separate stages, one to decide if the defendant is guilty and the second to choose the sentence, mandated by the Supreme Court), and appeals.

The death penalty doesn't apply to people with money. Its not reserved for the “worst of the worst,” but for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 3

You asked if it the demise penalty could be unlawful, My first intuition is not any, i think each and every from time to time my indignation receives the extra suitable of me. i'm no longer able to assert this is going to be unlawful, yet I do think of they could shrink it to ones they have sufficient evidence on. i do no longer think of purely because of the fact someone is stumbled on in charge by a jury is all there is to it. i choose the scientific evidence, or eye witness' who're completely unrelated to the case in any way and there is not any way they may well be incorrect or a confession that proves previous technology they did what ever. There are thank you to many adult males sitting in reformatory or reformatory that are being proved harmless by DNA and different checks that weren't obtainable whilst they have been arrested. i think of all convicts convicted on circumstantial data could be dealt with like a chilly case, and the forensics and data long gone throughout back. i do no longer comprehend whats going on with this worldwide, babies being killed by their fathers on father's day, toddler molesters getting a slap on the hand. One state you get much less time for killing a toddler than an grownup. the reason of the version is the grownup advance into seen extra useful because of the educational and money making comprehend-how. What **that's that? no count if that's shown little question that the guy is the guy who did this to a toddler, deadly injection is purely too solid for them. i do no longer comprehend what's justified of their circumstances, i think i'd could properly known the what and how, however the injection continues to be to consumer-friendly.