COLUMBIA, SC – The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled last week to allow the state to perform executions of those incarcerated on death row—shortly thereafter, the American Civil Liberties Union said it hopes to dismantle the death penalty altogether.
The ACLU issued a press statement noting the ruling does “allow the state to execute incarcerated people by electrocution, firing squad, or lethal injection….The ACLU of South Carolina opposes the death penalty and urges state lawmakers to abolish the practice regardless of method.”
ACLU-SC Executive Director Jace Woodrum said, “The death penalty has no place in our society or under our Constitution.”
Woodrum added, “Execution is a costly, ineffective form of cruel and unusual punishment that not only fails to make us safer but raises the possibility of the state killing innocent people in our name. In addition, South Carolina’s ‘shield law’ adds a layer of secrecy about the methodology of killing, making future executions less transparent than ever before.” The ACLU of South Carolina confirmed it is also currently suing the S.C. Department of Corrections over its uniquely draconian ban on news media interviews with incarcerated people…”as part of an effort to build public understanding of the death penalty system and its harmful effects.”
In the ongoing lawsuit of ACLU-SC v. Stirling, ACLU said it hopes to interview Marion Bowman, Jr., who resides on South Carolina’s death row in Columbia because “[a]s Mr. Bowman prepares to petition the governor to commute his sentence to life imprisonment, we want to share Mr. Bowman’s story in his own words.”
The ACLU, in its statement, shared the following basic facts about the current death penalty:
“The death penalty doesn’t make us safer. Between 2010 and 2018 the murder rate was 20 percent lower in non-death penalty states compared to death penalty states.
“The death penalty system is racist in practice. Black people make up more than half of the residents of South Carolina’s death row despite comprising only 26 percent of the state’s population. Nationwide, we know that a Black male is 18 times more likely to receive a death sentence if the victim was white versus Black.
“The death penalty is costly. Studies consistently find that the death penalty system costs taxpayers at least two to three times more than a sentence of life without parole. One study in North Carolina found that repealing the death penalty could have saved the state almost $22 million over the course of just two years.
“Courts make mistakes. South Carolina’s courts have convicted and sent at least two people to death row who were later acquitted. When new evidence arises, there is no opportunity for justice if we have already killed someone. This is one of the ways that the death penalty precludes justice rather than advancing it.”
