Jeffrey Collins/Associated Press

Body camera video of a deputy who was fired and arrested in South Carolina shows him punching a man several times in the head after a car chase. The man is knocked briefly unconscious and the officer asks after handcuffing him if he enjoyed his nap. Charleston County deputy James “Hank” Carter III is charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and misconduct in office.

A sporting goods chain is paying the families of three people shot to death by a South Carolina serial killer $2.5 million after one of its stores sold guns to a straw buyer who gave them to the killer, a felon who couldn't legally buy the weapons.

The only candidate running to be South Carolina's top judge defended the state's method of having lawmakers fill the state’s bench, saying appointees are ethical and qualified.

South Carolina's highest court apparently is not ready to allow the state to restart executions after more than 12 years until they hear more arguments about newly obtained lethal injection drugs as well as a recently added firing squad and the old electric chair.

Gov. Henry McMaster is requiring candidates nominated to be lower-level judges in South Carolina to submit the same kind of financial and background information as other statewide appointments.

A special committee has been created in the South Carolina House to study how the state chooses its judges. Republican House Speaker Murrell Smith says he wants the eight Republicans and five Democrats to hold public hearings and then debate a bill that can be introduced by the start of February.

A lawyer for a man sent back to prison in South Carolina after a deal reducing his sentence was canceled is asking for the agreement to be restored. Todd Rutherford says he and his client Jeroid Price did nothing wrong. The state Supreme Court sent Price back to jail in April.

Alex Murdaugh’s double murder case has been full of twists and turns. But one of the biggest surprises came as his lawyers say he deserves a new trial for killing his wife and son and his life sentence tossed out because elected Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill tampered with the jury.

Attorneys for convicted murder Alex Murdaugh want to call jurors and others back into the courtroom in an effort to get a new trial. They want to find out if the trial court clerk told jurors not to trust him when he testified in his own defense.

Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has lost his phone privileges and his prison tablet computer after his lawyer recorded him reading his journal entries on a call for a documentary about his case, South Carolina Corrections Department officials said Wednesday.