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18 former death row inmates have been resentenced since 2011. Here’s why.

Nov. 2, 2023

Donnie Myers had many nicknames, among them “Dr. Death.”

The former 11th Circuit solicitor, from 1977 until his retirement in 2016, prosecuted more death penalty cases than any solicitor in South Carolina, according to a Fair Punishment Project report.

He gained nicknames like “Dr. Death” for his steadfast pursuit of the death penalty in his cases, the Aiken Standard reported after he placed third on a list of the country’s five deadliest prosecutors in 2016.

But his relentless pursuit of the death penalty is also an example of why many inmates have been removed from death row.

The death penalty appeals process imposes infamously long delays between sentencing and execution. Compounded with South Carolina’s struggle since 2011 to perform executions without access to the lethal injection drug, 18 of the 22 convicts who are no longer on death row were removed because of solicitor actions during trial, procedural issues or intellectual disabilities, a Post and Courier analysis found.

Most of the former death row residents were resentenced to life, but four were able to secure a future release. One man was resentenced to 30 years and is expected to be released as early as 2027 at the age of 66, state prison records show.

Four men — Donald Allen Jones, Kenneth Justus, Jesse Sapp and Charles Shuler — who were on death row the last time South Carolina performed an execution died in prison of varying health complications. Jones was South Carolina’s second-longest-serving death row inmate, having been placed there in 1984.

As South Carolina says it is ready to perform lethal injections with the necessary drug, the 35-man death row could begin to shrink. The inmates currently on death row have been there an average of 20 years, according to state prison records.

Of those executed from 1976 to 2011, inmates waited an average of 11.8 years after being sentenced, according to a 2016 article in the Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy.

The death penalty remains on hold until at least February 2024, when the state’s Supreme Court will consider whether the electric chair and firing squad are constitutional methods of execution. Right now, the default is the electric chair.

Making the case

Four of the 18 men who won their appeal were originally prosecuted by Myers.

In the closing arguments for the cases of Johnny O’Landis Bennett Jr. and Clinton Robert Northcutt, courts found Myers’ statements to be overly zealous and, in the case of Bennett, “improper and prejudicial.”

In Bennett’s trial, Myers described the Black inmate as “King Kong,” a “monster,” a “caveman” and a “beast of burden,” leading a federal court in 2016 to relieve Bennett of his death sentence. Bennett was resentenced to 40 years in prison with credit for time served, meaning the earliest he will be released is in 2030 at the age of 63.

Similarly, in Northcutt’s trial, Myers reenacted a funeral procession by draping a black shroud over a baby’s crib and wheeling it into the courtroom. He also suggested the jury would be declaring an “open season on babies in Lexington County” if it did not return a death penalty.

While the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned Northcutt’s death sentence in 2007, he was sentenced to death again in 2009. In December 2022, he was resentenced to life, court records show.

Courts have found that Myers committed misconduct in 18, or nearly half, of the 39 death penalty cases he successfully prosecuted, according to the Fair Punishment Project report.

Myers could not be reached for comment.

Two other South Carolina solicitors also made comments during trials that led to cases being resentenced.

State Sen. Greg Hembree, who served as 15th Circuit solicitor for Horry and Georgetown counties until 2012, repeatedly likened Angle Joe Perrie Vazquez, who is Muslim, to the Sept. 11 terrorists, it was reported at the time.

During Vazquez’s sentencing, which happened over the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Hembree spoke extensively about the tragic impact of the attacks and called Vazquez a “domestic terrorist.”

Barbara Morgan, who served as 2nd Circuit solicitor for Aiken, Bamberg and Barnwell counties until 2009, argued that David McClure was not remorseful about his double-murder because he did not testify that he was sorry or wished he could take it back.

The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination, meaning McClure did not have to testify and Morgan could not use that against him, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled.

The state Attorney General’s Office, whose lawyers handle death penalty appeals alongside solicitors, declined to comment on The Post and Courier’s findings.

Nationally, the Death Penalty Information Center has identified more than 600 prosecutorial misconduct reversals and exonerations in death row cases — more than 6.3% of all death row sentences imposed since 1972, according to executive director Robin Maher.

“Behind those statistics are hundreds of ruined lives and lost futures,” Maher said. “The statistics in South Carolina are, unfortunately, consistent with what we have found in other states where overzealous and irresponsible prosecutors elevated winning over their responsibility to do justice.”

Choosing mercy

Three other inmates formerly on death row won a second sentencing hearing because juries were not clearly told that a life sentence could be given to a person as an act of mercy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that juries, who make the decision whether to sentence someone to life or death, must look at each person’s case uniquely and determine whether they ultimately deserve to die.

Kamell Delshawn Evans and John Kennedy Hughey were both resentenced to life in prison after successful appeals on these grounds.

Taylor Alex Cross, convicted under the name Jonathan Kyle Binney, made an agreement with prosecutors in 2018 to never again appeal their conviction or sentencing in exchange for a life sentence.

Having the right counsel

Four men successfully focused their appeals on the defense attorneys who represented them.

Steve Louis Barnes and Raymondeze Rivera argued that they had asked to represent themselves, but were refused, court records show. Both were resentenced to life.

Jimmy Locklair was resentenced to life after an appeal revealed that his defense attorney had questioned a witness he represented in a separate trial. The attorney admitted that the relationship influenced his line of questioning in Locklair’s trial, according to the 7th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

Timothy Rogers was resentenced to 50 years after a new sentencing hearing in 2013. His attorneys argued that he had ineffective counsel, The Post and Courier reported.

Cruel and unusual punishment

Seven men successfully made an appeal on the grounds of Atkins v. Virginia, a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said executing people with intellectual disabilities is unconstitutional.

Courts found that John Edward Weik, Kenneth Simmons, Kevin Mercer, William Henry Bell Jr., Charles Christopher Williams, Titus L. Huggins and Fredrick Evins were intellectually disabled under the criteria set by the Supreme Court, records show.

The high court ruled that being intellectually disabled includes having a reduced ability to understand and process information, communicate, learn from mistakes and reason.

Weik’s resentencing to life in 2018 came amid discussions of whether to use the firing squad as an execution method, since the drug for lethal injections remained unavailable, The Post and Courier reported at the time.

After Simmons was taken off death row, he was granted a new trial because the state exaggerated the reliability of its DNA testimony in his original trial, court records show. In 2020, Simmons was resentenced to 30 years in prison, with his earliest release being in 2027 at the age of 66.