Latest news with #SouthCarolinaDepartmentofCorrections
Toronto Sun
6 days ago
- Toronto Sun
South Carolina inmate chooses to die by lethal injection amid firing squad concerns
Published May 30, 2025 • 3 minute read This booking photo provided by South Carolina Department of Corrections shows Stephen Stanko. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP) AP COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina death row inmate Stephen Stanko on Friday chose to die by lethal injection after his lawyers said he was troubled by what appeared to be a lingering death of the last person in the state who was killed by a firing squad. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Stanko, who set to die June 13, had a choice among firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. His lawyers said in previous court filings he didn't want to suffer what he thought was cooking from thousands of volts of electricity. Firing squad questions They said he was leaning toward the firing squad before questions surfaced about whether Mikal Mahdi suffered agonizing pain for about 45 seconds — three times longer than expected — at his April 11 execution after the firing squad nearly missed his heart. In reviewing autopsy reports, attorneys told him the state's lethal injection protocols appear to send a rush of fluid into the lungs that feels like drowning when a lethal dose of pentobarbital is put into the inmate's veins. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Stanko's lawyers had asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to delay his execution so they could get more information about the firing squad or further investigate any potential problems, but the justices refused their request Wednesday. South Carolina's multiple executions Stanko, 57, has been sentenced to death twice in the state for two separate murders — the killing of a friend and the killing of his girlfriend as he raped her daughter. South Carolina restarted executions in September after obtaining pentobarbital used in lethal injections thanks to a new secrecy law. The state didn't execute a prisoner from 2011 to 2024 after its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and pharmacies refused to sell them more unless their identities could be kept secret. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Stanko is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner's home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying, and shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said. Stanko stole Turner's truck, cleaned out his bank account and spent the next few days in Augusta, Georgia, where he told people in town for the Masters golf tournament that he owned several Hooters restaurants. He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She called police once after seeing his photo and learning that he was wanted, police said. Hours before killing Turner, Stanko beat and strangled his girlfriend in her home and raped her daughter before slashing the teen's throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at one of his trials. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. During Stanko's execution, he will be strapped to a gurney with his arm outstretched. Medical workers will place an IV in his arm before the curtain is opened to the witness room. His lawyer can read a final statement and then the execution will start with no announcement. It has typically taken about 20 minutes before a doctor comes in, checks the inmate and declares him dead. Autopsies done on two of the three previous inmates killed by lethal injection in South Carolina in the past year have shown their lungs filled with massive amounts of fluid. Experts said that is what usually happens when someone is given a massive dose of pentobarbital. Medical experts hired by the state said the drug knocks the inmate unconscious before they ever feel any other sensation or pain. Witnesses to the executions said inmates don't have any signs of consciousness after about 30 seconds. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Other experts hired by lawyers for the inmates said prisoners may still be able to feel and that the rush of fluid is like drowning. One of the three inmates killed by lethal injection last year did not choose to have an autopsy for religious reasons. Two doses of the drug In the three most recent lethal injection deaths, prison officials have given two large doses of the sedative pentobarbital about 10 minutes apart. Most other states and the federal government give just one dose of the drug but have a second on hand if needed. Prison officials have not said why they are giving two doses or whether that is part of their normal procedures, citing a 2023 law that keeps secret the providers of lethal injection drugs, the identities of members of execution teams and the procedures used. Toronto & GTA World Crime World Toronto Raptors
Toronto Sun
21-05-2025
- Toronto Sun
South Carolina death row inmate seeks to volunteer to die after friends executed
Published May 21, 2025 • 4 minute read This Sept. 17, 2021 photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows death row inmate James D. Robertson. Photo by South Carolina Department of Corrections / AP COLUMBIA, S.C. — After his best friend and four other 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. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account A federal judge has ordered a 45-day delay in James Robertson's request to have a different lawyer talk to him and make sure he really wants to fire his own attorneys and deal with the likely lethal consequences of his decision. Robertson, 51, has been on death row since 1999 after killing both his parents in their Rock Hill home. He beat his father with the claw end of a hammer and a baseball bat and stabbed his mother. He tried to make it look like a robbery in hopes he would get his part of their $2.2 million estate, prosecutors said. Robertson has fired his lawyers before. Not long after he arrived on death row he wanted to drop his appeals after a card-playing buddy never appealed his death sentence for setting a van on fire with his daughter inside outside his ex-wife's house. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A letter from a death row inmate A one-page letter from Robertson landed in a federal judge's mailbox on April 7, four days before South Carolina executed its fifth inmate in seven months. It said Robertson and his lawyer had a difference of opinion. Since 'no ethical attorney will withdraw an appeal that will result in their client's execution,' Robertson said he was ready to represent himself. Robertson's attorney Emily Paavola responded in court documents that Robertson wasn't taking medication for depression, suffered from chronic back pain and a skin condition that made him more depressed and was distressed over those five executions that dropped the close-knit death row population from 30 to 25. RECOMMENDED VIDEO This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Included was Robertson's best friend on death row, Marion Bowman Jr., killed by lethal injection on Jan. 31, Paavola said. Paavloa asked the judge to hold off on Robertson's request for four months so he could have a full psychiatric evaluation to decide if he is mentally competent. Prosecutors suggested the judge could talk to Robertson on her own and decide if was able to act as his own lawyer. Judge Mary Gordon Baker decided to have a different lawyer talk to Robertson, making sure he understands the implications and consequences of his decision and report back by early July. Not the first time Back in the early 2000s, Robertson also sought to drop all his appeals. He told a judge at the time he thought he got the better end of the deal with a death sentence instead of life in prison without parole and he had been let down by every lawyer he had encountered since his arrest. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A judge asked Robertson at a 2002 hearing about his friend Michael Passaro's decision to volunteer for the death chamber. 'It hasn't changed my view. What it did was it made me understand — enhanced reality a bit — to see my best friend go from one day playing cards with me to the next day not being here any more,' Robertson said. 'He basically has taken a similar route that I'm choosing to take now and we spoke often about his decision.' Volunteers for death Volunteers, as they are called in death penalty circles, have been around since the death penalty was reinstated 50 years ago. About 10% of all U.S. executions are inmates who agree to die before finishing all their appeals, according to statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Research by the center and academics found that nearly all volunteers had mental illness that may have led them to decide they no longer wanted to live. The rate of volunteers has taken a steady decline along with the number of executions. From 2000 to 2009, 65 of the 590 U.S. executions involved an inmate who dropped appeals, including Timothy McVeigh for killing 148 people in the Oklahoma City bombing. From 2020 to now, just seven of the 111 people put to death have been considered volunteers by the center. Prosecutor understands not fighting death sentence The prosecutor who sent Robertson to death row said he can understand why inmates choose to stop fighting their sentences. 'If you told me — be incarcerated on death row the rest of your life or just go ahead and go to the Lord, you know, I might choose the latter too,' said Tommy Pope, now Speaker Pro Tem of the South Carolina House. But Pope said 26 years ago, he also observed a young man with above average intelligence who likes to work the system when he can and often thinks he is smarter than his attorneys. 'As usual with Jimmy, it will remain to be seen how it plays out until the very end,' Pope said. Toronto Maple Leafs Canada Canada Golf Toronto Maple Leafs
Toronto Sun
16-05-2025
- Toronto Sun
South Carolina man convicted of murdering two people gets June execution date
Published May 16, 2025 • 3 minute read This booking photo provided by South Carolina Department of Corrections shows Stephen Stanko. Photo by South Carolina Department of Corrections / AP COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina man who was twice sentenced to die for killing two people nearly two decades ago was scheduled Friday to be executed on June 13. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account The state Supreme Court issued the death warrant against Stephen Stanko for the Horry County shooting death of a friend. Stanko is also on death row for killing a women he was living with in Georgetown County and raping her teenage daughter. Stanko is the first person whose death has been scheduled in South Carolina's since Mikal Mahdi was executed by firing squad on April 11. Mahdi's lawyers released autopsy results that show the shots that killed him barely hit his heart and suggested he was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly. Stanko will get to decide if he dies by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. The deadline for his decision is May 30. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The crimes Stanko, 57, is being executed for killing his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner. Stanko went to Turner's home in April 2006 after lying about his father dying and then shot Turner twice while using a pillow as a silencer, authorities said. Stanko stole Turner's truck, cleaned out his bank account and then spent the next few days in Augusta, Georgia, where he told people in town for the Masters golf tournament that he owned several Hooters restaurants. He stayed with a woman who took him to church. She then called police once she saw his photo and that he was wanted for murder, police said. RECOMMENDED VIDEO Hours before killing Turner, Stanko beat and strangled his girlfriend in her home and raped her daughter before slashing the teen's throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at one of his trials. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Greg Hembree, who prosecuted one of the trials, later became a state senator and was the chief sponsor of the 2021 law that allowed South Carolina to use a firing squad. His own lawyer called him a 'psychopath' Stanko admitted to the killings. His defense said he had problems with the frontal lobe of his brain that left him aggressive, unable to control his impulses and without empathy. They argued that he was either not guilty by reason of insanity or that he at least shouldn't get the death penalty because of his mental illness. In his appeals, Stanko said his trial attorney ruined his chance at a fair trial and lost any sympathy with jurors by calling him a 'psychopath.' Firing squad problems Any final appeals by Stanko in the weeks before his execution will likely include the problems Mahdi's lawyers raised after his firing squad death. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The only photo of Mahdi taken at his autopsy shows two apparent chest wounds. Officials said all three bullets fired by the three volunteer prison employees hit Mahdi, with two going through the same hole. During the state's first firing squad death, the autopsy found that Brad Sigmon's heart had been destroyed. Just one of the four chambers of Mahdi's heart was perforated, which likely meant he didn't die in the 15 seconds experts predicted he would have if the squad's aim was true, according to his lawyers. Witnesses said Mahdi, who had a hood over his head, groaned 45 seconds after he was shot. South Carolina's busy death chamber Stanko will be the sixth inmate killed in South Carolina since an unintended 13-year pause on executions ended in September 2024. The state struggled for years to get the drugs needed for lethal injections until it passed a shield law that allowed the execution procedures, and the names of the drug supplier and execution team members, to remain secret. Three South Carolina inmates have died by lethal injection over the past eight months, while two have chosen the firing squad. Across the U.S., 16 executions have taken place in 2025, with at least six more scheduled before Stanko is set to die.
Toronto Sun
08-05-2025
- Toronto Sun
Lawyers for man executed by firing squad in South Carolina say bullets mostly missed his heart
Published May 08, 2025 • 4 minute read This photo provided by South Carolina Department of Corrections shows Mikal Mahdi. Photo by South Carolina Department of Corrections / AP COLUMBIA, S.C. — A man who was put to death last month in South Carolina's second firing squad execution was conscious and likely in extreme pain for as long as a minute after the bullets, meant to quickly stop his heart, struck him lower than expected, according to a pathologist hired by his attorneys. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account An autopsy photo of Mikal Mahdi's torso showed only two distinct wounds from the three volunteer prison employees who all had live ammunition in the April 11 execution, according to the pathologist's report, which was filed Thursday with a letter to the state Supreme Court titled 'notice of botched execution.' Prison workers suggested two bullets entered his body at the same spot. 'The shooters missed the intended target area and the evidence indicates that he was struck by only two bullets, not the prescribed three. Consequently, the nature of the internal injuries from the gunshot wounds resulted in a more prolonged death process,' said Dr. Jonathan Arden, a pathologist hired by attorneys for condemned inmates. Arden said that likely meant Mahdi took 30 to 60 seconds to lose consciousness — two to four times longer than the 15 seconds that experts including Arden and ones hired by the state predicted for a properly conducted firing squad execution. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. During that time Mahdi would have suffered excruciating pain as his lungs tried to expand and move into a broken sternum and ribs, as well as from 'air hunger' as the damaged lungs struggled and failed to bring in needed oxygen, Arden said. Witnesses to the execution heard Mahdi cry out as the shots were fired, groan again some 45 seconds later and let out one last low moan just before he appeared to draw his final breath at 75 seconds. Mahdi, 42, was executed after admitting he killed Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers in 2004, shooting him at least eight times before burning his body. Myers' wife found him in the couple's Calhoun County shed, which had been the backdrop to their wedding 15 months earlier. Prison officials have given no indication that there were problems with Mahdi's execution. A shield law keeps many details private, including the training and methods used by the firing squad. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The official autopsy did not include X-rays to allow the results to be independently verified; only one photo was taken of Mahdi's body, and no close-ups of the wounds; and his clothing was not examined to determine where the target was placed and how it aligned with the damage the bullets caused to his shirt, Arden said in a report summarizing his findings. 'I noticed where the target was placed on Mikal's torso, and I remember thinking to myself, 'I'm certainly not an expert in human anatomy, but it appears to me that target looks low,'' said David Weiss, an attorney for Mahdi who was also a witness at his death. In the official autopsy report, pathologist Dr. Bradley Marcus wrote that the reason there were only two wounds is that one could have been caused by two bullets entering the body at the same spot. Marcus said he spoke to an unnamed prison official who reported that when the three volunteer firing squad members practice, sometimes their targets end up with just one or two holes from three live rounds. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Arden called that virtually unheard of in his 40 years of examining dead bodies and said Marcus told him in a conversation that the possibility was remote. The autopsy found damage in only one of the four chambers of Mahdi's heart — the right ventricle. There was extensive damage to his liver and pancreas as the bullets continued down. 'The entrance wounds were at the lowest area of the chest, just above the border with the abdomen, which is an area not largely overlying the heart,' Arden wrote. In their conversation Marcus also said the severe amount of liver damage was not anticipated and he 'expected the entrance wounds to be higher on the chest,' Arden wrote in his report. In contrast the autopsy on Brad Sigmon, the first man killed by firing squad in the state, showed three distinct bullet wounds and his heart was obliterated, Arden said. He added that the autopsy report in that case included X-rays, adequate photos and a cursory examination of his clothes. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Without X-rays or other internal scans to follow the path of the bullets through Mahdi's body, no additional light could be shed on the two-bullets-through-one-hole claim, Arden said. Weiss said he was stunned that so little was done in the autopsy even after the pathologist saw only two holes in his chest. The apparent errors in how the execution was carried out are a major problem, he asserted. 'His heart was missed, and in all likelihood only two out of three shots were fired,' Weiss said. 'And I think that raises incredibly difficult questions about the type of training and oversight that is going into this process.' 'It was obvious to me as a lay person upon reading his autopsy report that something went wrong here. We should want to figure out what it was that went wrong when you've got state government carrying out the most serious, most grave possible type of function,' Weiss said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Mahdi's body was cremated preventing a second autopsy, Weiss said. South Carolina allows condemned inmates to choose whether to die by lethal injection, electric chair or firing squad. Three in the past year have chosen lethal injection, but the past two opted for the firing squad, saying they feared the other methods — autopsies have shown that lethal injection causes a rush of fluid into the lungs, and burns have been found on bodies after electrocutions. Twenty-six people remain on South Carolina's death row. Stephen Stanko, who has two death sentences for murders in Horry County and Georgetown County, has run out of appeals and likely will be scheduled to die in June. Toronto Maple Leafs Editorial Cartoons Canada Ontario Sunshine Girls
Washington Post
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
South Carolina prisons director is named the new US attorney for the state
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The man who has led South Carolina prisons for more than a decade was named as the top federal prosecutor for the state on Monday. Bryan Stirling took the oath of office in a private ceremony at the federal courthouse in Columbia, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement. Stirling has run the South Carolina Department of Corrections since 2013, receiving praise from a wide range of officials and lawmakers for reducing the number of inmates who return to prison after committing additional crimes, fighting drugs, cellphones and other contraband and improving prison conditions. Stirling takes over for Adair Boroughs, who was appointed under Democratic President Joe Biden and left after Republican Donald Trump became president earlier this year. Stirling was born in Boston and came to the University of South Carolina as an undergraduate and earned his law degree from the school in 1996. Stirling worked for the South Carolina Attorney General's Office before becoming chief of staff for Gov. Nikki Haley in October 2012. As U.S. Attorney in the District of South Carolina, Stirling will oversee 120 prosecutors and other employees in the agency with offices in Columbia, Charleston, Greenville and Florence. The U.S. attorney's office also represents the federal government in some civil matters Current Gov. Henry McMaster praised Stirling as one of the best prisons directors in the country, evidenced by how many other states follow his model. 'He revolutionized South Carolina's reentry programs, resulting in the lowest recidivism rate in the country, and his efforts to combat contraband cell phones have made all our communities safer,' McMaster said in a statement. McMaster named the prison agency's deputy director of operations, Joel Anderson, as acting director. Anderson has held that job since 2019 and also worked with prisons in Texas and Florida.
