South Carolina Department of Corrections

A South Carolina inmate scheduled to be executed Friday is asking Gov. Henry McMaster to spare his life, something no governor in the state has done since the death penalty was restarted nearly 50 years ago.

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit trying to overturn the South Carolina prison system's banning on-camera, in-person interviews with inmates or recording their phone calls for broadcast.

The state is poised to carry out its first execution in more than a decade after the Department of Corrections secured the drug pentobarbital.

South Carolina will join nonprofit Concordance's national effort to reduce the prison reentry rate after a $60 million donation by Wells Fargo that will help open the state's first "healing first" center.

The state grand jury has issued indictments against five South Carolina Department of Corrections officers for corruption and conspiring to smuggle drugs and cell phones into McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum-security prison.

A convicted killer is back behind bars in South Carolina four months after he was released as part of an unannounced deal that cut his 35-year prison sentence nearly in half.

A bill that would allow South Carolina to buy the drugs needed for lethal injection without revealing the name of the company who sells them will soon be heading for the governor's desk. The state Senate on Thursday approved minor changes the House made in the shield law bill with almost no debate. The proposal also requires the names of members of the execution team be kept secret. South Carolina has had an unintended 12-year moratorium on the death penalty after its lethal injection drugs passed their expiration date and pharmacies refused to sell the state more.

South Carolina prison officials have decided to keep former attorney and convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh in a special protective unit as he begins serving his life sentence for killing his wife and son. The state Department of Corrections said in a news release Friday that mental health and prison experts determined that Murdaugh should be kept in protective custody after they reviewed his case, including the enormous amount of publicity it garnered and psychiatric and other tests. Prison officials said they weren't disclosing the unit's location due to security concerns.

South Carolina's highest court will hear arguments on whether a newly organized firing squad or the old electric chair are legal ways to execute inmates in the state. The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear an appeal Thursday of a lower court ruling that executions by electrocution or firing squad cause excruciating pain and are cruel and unusual punishments. South Carolina hasn't conducted an execution since 2011. Since then, the state's lethal injection drugs have expired and administrators have been unable to buy more. That led lawmakers in 2021 to pass a bill essentially requiring condemned inmates to be electrocuted unless they choose the firing squad.

Cellist Claire Bryant released her debut solo album this month entitled, "Whole Heart" at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville where she teaches music to prisoners.