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US Supreme Court declares the death penalty legislative schemes in use at the time violate the Eighth Amendment.
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The “current era” of the death penalty begins.
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US Supreme Court decisions approving the use of the death penalty under the current schemes.
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Gary Gilmore waives his appeals and is executed in Utah.
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Michael Linder is acquitted after two years on death row. Linder shot and killed a highway patrol officer. Linder maintained that the shooting was in self-defense. Ballistics evidence was withheld during his first trial, and Linder was convicted and sentenced to death. When the evidence was presented at his retrial, he was acquitted. State v. Linder, 278 S.E.2d 335 (S.C. 1981).
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The US Supreme Court says prosecutors who use their peremptory strikes to strike black potential jurors must provide a race-neutral reason. Any race-neutral reason will suffice.
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The US Supreme Court says states can’t execute the insane.
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The US Supreme Court says racism in the criminal justice system is not a violation of “equal protection under the laws” unless there was provable intentional racial discrimination in that case.
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The US Supreme Court says that new evidence of innocence is not enough for a new trial, unless there is also some constitutional violation in the proceedings.
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Jury sentences Susan Smith to life in prison for the murder of her two young sons. Smith initially claimed that “a black man” had stolen her car and kidnapped her sons.
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Highest number of executions in one year in SC (tied with 1998) with six executions.
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President Clinton signs the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act into law, limiting review of state death sentences by the federal courts.
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The SC Department of Corrections moves Death Row from Columbia to Lieber Correctional Institute in Ridgeville.
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SC has seven executions in one year, including four in December.
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Manning is acquitted after 10 years on SC’s Death Row. Manning was tried five separate times for killing a law enforcement officer. He was convicted each of the first four times, and each of those times the case was overturned. In his 5th trial, Manning was represented by expert death penalty attorney & friend of the Center) David Bruck. The case against Manning was entirely circumstantial. Manning consistently maintained his innocence.The fifth jury acquitted Manning after less than 3 hours.
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Kevin Dean Young is the only person executed in SC in 2000.
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SC executes Richard Charles Johnson, Anthony Green, and Michael Joseph Passaro in 2002.
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The US Supreme Court says states can’t execute the intellectually disabled (mentally retarded), but allows states to decide who meets that definition.
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SC executes David Clayton Hill, Jerry Bridwell McWee, Jason Scott Byram, and James Neil Tucker.
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SC executes Richard Longworth, Hastings Arthur Wise, and Shawn Paul Humphries.
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The US Supreme Court says that states can’t execute those who committed the crime when they were less than 18 years old.
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SC statute extends the death penalty to those twice convicted of the rape of a child under age 11. The constitutionality of the law is unclear, as the US Supreme Court has said that the death penalty is unconstitutional for rape of an adult.
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SC executes William Ernest Downs, Jr.
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SC executes Calvin Alphonso Shuler.
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SC executes David Mark Hill, James Earl Reed, and Joseph Gardner.
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SC executes two men: Luke A. Williams (for the murder of his wife and child) and Thomas Treshawn Ivey (for the murders of a law enforcement officer and another man).
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SC executes Jeffrey Brian Motts by lethal injection for the murder of his cellmate. He is the only person SC executes in 2011. To date, he is the last person executed in SC.
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He was given a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct after evidence appeared that prosecutors had claimed was missing. Testing of the DNA evidence pointed to an unknown white man (Elmore is black).
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Ard was exonerated based on evidence corroborating his position that the shooting of his pregnant girlfriend was accidental.
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Boston Marathon bombing suspect to be represented by Judy Clarke, a graduate of USC Law.
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Testing