South Carolina inmate set for execution files stay of execution
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - The man sentenced to death for the killing of an off-duty Orangeburg police officer in 2004 has filed a stay of execution.
Mikal Mahdi is set for execution on April 11 following sentencing from the South Carolina Supreme Court.
Attorneys for Mahdi have cited the filing as a result of years of abuse while at home and having spent over 7,000 hours of solitary confinement in prison.
David Weiss, Assistant Federal Public Defender at the Capital Habeas Unit for the Fourth Circuit, issued the following statement on behalf of Mikal’s legal team:
“Growing up in rural Virginia, Mikal suffered years of trauma due to his father’s schizophrenia. His father was so abusive that Mikal’s mother fled when he was four. Left behind, Mikal struggled. By nine, he couldn’t read and started having suicidal thoughts and depression. Teachers tried to help, but his father withdrew him from school and subjected Mikal to ‘homeschooling’ in the form of conspiracy-filled rants and survivalist training in the woods.
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As Mikal became a teenager, things got worse. After turning 14, Mikal spent almost every day of his life – 86% of it – in juvenile and adult prisons. He was suicidal and severely depressed, yet was subjected to extensive solitary confinement, which has been shown to increase serious mental health problems. In juvenile prison, Mikal endured 1,800 hours in isolation, often for minor offenses like refusing to do physical training or tearing pages out of a school book. He spent another 6,000 hours of solitary confinement in adult prison, again for often petty reasons, like refusing to tuck in his shirt or get a haircut.
Mikal also spent significant time at Wallens Ridge State Prison, a supermax facility in rural Virginia notorious for human rights abuses, brutality, and racism. At age 21, just two months after being released from these nightmarish conditions, Mikal killed two men: Christopher Boggs and Orangeburg SC Public Safety Captain James Myers. A few years after his capital trial, Mikal tragically assaulted a prison guard on death row during a failed escape attempt.
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Elementary school teachers Mikal as an inquisitive and sensitive child. Today, he is an avid reader with diverse interests. Mikal has also finally started to heal from his childhood trauma, as shown by the fact that he has not engaged in any assaultive behavior in prison for well over a decade.
We are asking the court to take a second look at the case because Mikal’s trial lawyers told barely a fraction of his story before Mikal was sentenced to death. Pausing Mikal’s execution for a new hearing makes sense in light of what we know today – and didn’t know at the time Mikal was a teenager in prison – about the right way to care for kids recovering from trauma.”
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So far, Governor McMaster has not granted any stays of execution for death row inmates.
If the stay of execution is not granted, Mahdi will be the fifth inmate to be executed in South Carolina since the death penalty resumed last fall.
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