South Carolina He scheduled the execution of a prisoner convicted of a fatal crack of a police officer out of duty, which would make him the fifth person that the state had pushed since he continued his executions in the fall after an inadvertent 13-year-old break.
Mikal Mahdi, 41, should be executed on April 11 at 6 pm in Columbia prison, the Supreme Court of State announced on Friday.
Mahdi can decide to die with a deadly injection, an electric chair or a shooting. Must make a decision by March 28 or will be killed by an electric chair.
On March 7, Brad Sigmon became the first prisoner to be executed by shooting in the US in 15 years when he was killed in South Carolina. Only three prisoners in the United States have been performed by this method since 1976, and all have been in Utah.
Convicted double killer executed by shooting in southern carolina
Mikal Mahdi, 41, should be executed on April 11 at 6 pm in Columbia prison. (Department of South Caroline Repair Department via AP)
Three other prisoners have killed in South Carolina since the state continued executions in September. Freddie Owens September 20, Richard Moore, November 1, and Marion Bowman Jr. 31 January, they all died in a deadly injection. Sigmon chose a shooting for concern about the long -term suffering that three other prisoners faced when they were killed by a deadly injection.
The court delayed a potentially six execution for Steven Bixby, who was convicted of the murder of two police officers in a dispute in the land dispute in Abbeville County in December 2003. Bixby should have been committed in May, but the court ruled that the judge must first determine if he is mentally competent.
The psychologist said Bixby understood what led to his death penalty, but also believed that the blood was found on his clothes on the night of murder contains DNA Jesus Christ.
Mahdi’s lawyer, David Weiss, said his client is a long history of problematic behavior as a child.
Already in the second grade, Mahdi suffered from mental despair and talked about self -harm, Weiss said. He already had a criminal complaint until the moment he was a teenager, he spent weeks in a solitary prison after being convicted of punching and entry and an attack on a police officer in Virginia.
“He has repeatedly failed him his own family and the judicial system, who neglected to see him about who he is: a wounded child who needs support,” Weiss said in a statement. “Mikal’s story is one of the traumas, neglect and many missed opportunities to provide security and compassion that every child should have.”
On July 14, 2004, Mahdi stole a gun and a car in Virginia, when he was 21, he shows records of arrests. The next day he shot and killed a shopkeeper in North Carolina while the clerk checked his identification. A few days later, he traveled someone at the intersection in Columbia, South Carolina.
On July 18, 2004, while on the run after these crimes, Mahdi hid in Orangeburg, South Carolina, public security officer James Myers. Mahdi sat Meyers when the officer returned from his birthday celebration for his wife, sister and daughter, prosecutors said.
The potential sixth execution for Steven Bixby, who was convicted in the murder of two police officers in 2003, was postponed. (Department of South Caroline Repair Department via AP)
Myers, 56, was shot eight or nine times, including twice in the head after falling to the ground. The pathologist testified that at least seven shots would be fatal.
Mahdi then lit myers’ body and ran away. Myers’s wife discovered her husband’s dead body in a shed, which they used for the background of their wedding.
July 21, 2004. Mahdi was In custody in Florida. When one of the officers who participated in his arrest founded what was required in South Carolina, he thanked Mahdi for not shooting at him. Mahdi told him that he was the only reason he was not that he was skeptical that he could successfully shoot two officers and their K-9 and escape with him.
While behind the bars, Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could use to escape. One was Allen Ključ, and the others were homemade fox kers, including the one found under his tongue at his trial.
In the death line, Mahdi stabbed the guard and hit another worker with a concrete block. On three occasions, prison staff found sharpened metal in its cell that could be used as a knife.
During the trial, Mahdi’s lawyers said their client was the second son of a woman who got married in a regulated marriage at the age of 16. His family described a chaotic childhood, although no one testified about abuse or mental illness.
Mahdi declared himself guilty of the murder, condemned by Judge Clifton Newman, who at the time said to Post and Courier that he was not sure he believed in the death penalty, but the case became greater than his beliefs.
Re -scheduling the execution of southern caroline after a break for the holidays
This photo provided by the Ministry of South Caroline repairs shows the State Chamber for Death in Columbia in South Carolina, including an electric chair, right and a shooting chair. (Department of South Caroline Repair Department via AP)
“My challenge and my commitment during my judicial career were to mitigate justice to mercy and seek to find humanity with every defendant I said,” Newman said as he handed Mahdi’s punishment. “It seems that this sense of humanity does not exist in Mikal deen Mahdi”
Once one of the most prominent to executions, South Carolina continued executions in September after a 13-year break partly caused by a state that has difficulty injection for injection due to the concern of pharmaceutical companies that they will have to discover that they sold drugs to state officials.
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AND state legislative body He then passed the Stnik Law, which allows officials to make the deaths of the drug suppliers injection private. The legislation also approved the shooting team as another method of execution compared to the difficulty in gaining medication.
South Carolina has executed 47 prisoners since the death sentence continued in the United States in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state spent an average of three executions per year. Only nine countries killed more prisoners.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
