execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A judge in South Carolina has ruled a death row inmate who thinks most laws are unconstitutional is mentally competent and can be executed. Lawyers for Steven Bixby told the judge he couldn't adequately help them because of his beliefs including that citizens have an absolute right to defend their property to the death. The state Supreme Court had paused Bixby's execution to assess his mental competence. Bixby was convicted of killing two police officers in Abbeville in 2003. Judge R. Scott Sprouse noted Bixby cooperates with his lawyers and understands their role. Bixby’s lawyers can appeal the ruling.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A judge is considering whether delusional beliefs about the legal system are enough to prevent a South Carolina prisoner from being executed. Steven Bixby, who was convicted of killing two police officers in 2003, submitted his own handwritten legal papers after a two-day hearing last month.

A South Carolina man sent to death row twice for separate murders has been put to death by lethal injection in the state’s sixth execution in nine months.

A federal judge doesn't plan to stop the execution of South Carolina inmate Stephen Stanko because the convicted man's lawyers didn’t have evidence of problems with the state’s lethal injection process.

South Carolina death row inmate Stephen Stanko has chosen to die by lethal injection after his lawyers say he is troubled by what appeared to be a lingering death of the last person in the state who was killed by firing squad.

After his best friend and four other of his fellow death row inmates have been put to death in less than a year, a South Carolina inmate wants to become his own attorney which would likely mean his own execution in weeks or months.

An inmate sentenced to death twice in two South Carolina killings has been scheduled to be executed on June 13.

A pathologist hired by attorneys for death row inmates says a South Carolina man executed by firing squad was conscious and likely in extreme pain for as long as a minute. The autopsy results for Mikal Mahdi show the bullets meant to quickly stop his heart struck him lower than expected.

A firing squad on Friday executed a South Carolina man who killed an off-duty police officer, the second time the rare execution method has been used by the state in the past five weeks.

A few more details are known about South Carolina's firing squad as the state prepares to carry out its second execution by that method.