S.C. death row inmate files petition for clemency days before execution
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC) - In just days before his scheduled execution, one South Carolina inmate on death row has filed a petition for clemency with Gov. Henry McMaster, asking to commute the sentence from death to life in prison.
Mikal Mahdi is set for execution by firing squad on April 11 at 6 p.m. at a Columbia prison for the murder of an off-duty Orangeburg officer.
Mahdi would be the second in the state to ever die by firing squad.
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On Wednesday, David Weiss, a member of Mahdi’s legal team, issued a statement regarding Mahdi’s filing for clemency:
“We ask Governor Henry McMaster to see the complete picture. To recognize Mikal Mahdi’s humanity, deep remorse, and transformation into a thoughtful and curious person despite surviving years of childhood trauma and abuse.
Mr. Mahdi’s life is a tragic story of a child abandoned at every step. As a young child, he witnessed his father repeatedly and brutally assault his mother. At age four, Mikal’s mother fled the abuse, leaving him and his brother alone with a volatile father battling significant mental illness.
By second grade, Mikal had already developed suicidal feelings. In fifth grade, teachers tried to get Mikal the help he needed, but his dad wouldn’t allow it, instead pulling Mikal from school and subjecting him to conspiracy-laden rants and daily survivalist training in the woods. By 14 years old, Mikal would enter the prison system for committing property crimes, and basically never left. Between the ages of 14 and 21, Mikal spent over 80% of his life in prison and lived through 8,000 hours in solitary confinement, often as punishment for the most minor offenses, like refusing to tuck in his shirt. Today, prison isolation is widely recognized as torture for children.
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We fully recognize the pain, suffering, and senseless loss caused by Mr. Mahdi’s crimes, but this case shows why clemency exists. Mikal’s sentencing hearing was a sham. He was sentenced to die even though his trial lawyers never explained the trauma that shaped his life and led him to commit terrible acts at only 21 years old. Now 42, Mikal is deeply remorseful and a dramatically different person from the confused, angry, and abused youth who committed the capital crimes.
We urge Governor McMaster to consider the full story of Mikal’s life. To for the trauma, abuse, and neglect Mikal endured. To consider the scientific research showing how damaging Mikal’s time in solitary confinement was as an adolescent. And finally, to acknowledge that justice must be tempered with mercy—especially when the system has failed someone so completely as it has Mikal.”
If Gov. McMaster denies clemency, Mahdi’s execution will come less than 40 days after Brad Sigmon, another death row inmate, died by firing squad.
McMaster has yet to grant clemency to a death row inmate since executions resumed last fall.
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