The South Carolina Supreme Court docket refused an attraction made in an try to dam the firing squad execution later this week for a person who ambushed and killed an off-duty police officer.
Mikal Mahdi’s legal professionals sought to remain his execution and reasoned that his unique protection staff introduced a shoddy case on his behalf when he was on trial. His unique attorneys didn’t convey ahead any kinfolk, academics, or some other folks related to him and uncared for to contemplate the influence prolonged solitary confinement had on him as an adolescent, his new staff argued.
However state Supreme Court docket determined in a unanimous determination to permit Friday’s execution to maneuver ahead.
Thus far, 4 folks have been executed in South Carolina within the final eight months. All the inmates’ appeals filed to the state Supreme Court docket had been rejected, and no South Carolina governor has provided clemency within the 47 executions carried out within the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
Nonetheless, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster is Mahdi’s final hope.
Mahdi was convicted of killing Orangeburg Public Security officer James Myers in 2004. He ambushed the off-duty cop, shot him not less than eight instances, and burned his physique in a shed that had been the backdrop to the officer’s wedding ceremony simply 15 months earlier.
He was later arrested in Florida whereas driving the cop’s unmarked police pickup truck.
Mahdi additionally admitted to killing Christopher Biggs, a comfort retailer clerk in North Carolina, simply three days prior. Biggs was shot twice within the head whereas he was checking Mahdi’s ID. He was sentenced to life in jail for that killing.
For Myers’ killing, Mahdi pled responsible and was sentenced to loss of life. Your entire protection’s argument preventing for Mahdi’s life solely lasted half-hour and included simply two witnesses, based on his new legal professionals, who wrote that it “was just as superficial” as “a Law & Order episode.”
On the other finish, the prosecution known as a staggering 28 witnesses.
Ought to Mahdi’s execution go ahead, he would be the second inmate executed by South Carolina’s new firing squad after Brad Sigmon selected to be shot to loss of life final month. Sigmon was additionally the primary loss of life row inmate in 15 years to decide on loss of life by firing squad.
Mahdi is to be put to loss of life with three bullets to the guts at 6 p.m. on April 11 on the Broad River Correctional Establishment in Columbia.
With Submit wires
