The above shows the execution chamber in the Department of Corrections’ Columbia prisons complex, as seen from the witness room. The firing squad chair (left) was added following a 2021 state law that made death by firing squad an option. The electric chair is under the cover. (Provided by the S.C. Department of Corrections)
COLUMBIA — The state Supreme Court will not halt an execution scheduled for Friday, according to an order.
Mikal Mahdi, 42, is scheduled to die by firing squad at 6 p.m. Friday. Mahdi pleaded guilty in 2006 to killing two men during a multi-state crime spree two years prior.
Mikal Mahdi. (Provided/SC Department of Corrections)
Mahdi could still appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution or ask Gov. Henry McMaster to change his sentence to life in prison. Neither option was successful for any of the four inmates executed in the state over the past seven months.
Mahdi’s attorneys argued Judge Clifton Newman, the sentencing judge in 2006, was unable to fully to consider Mahdi’s traumatic childhood because his original defense attorneys failed to give him enough information.
If Newman had known more about Mahdi’s life, such as alleged abuse by his father and the thousands of hours Mahdi spent in solitary confinement as a teenager, the judge might have decided to instead hand down a lesser sentence, Mahdi’s current legal team argued.
All five state Supreme Court justices disagreed in a 13-page order issued Monday.
The justices pointed to a number of violent incidents Newman considered in sentencing Mahdi to death.
Among them was a 2001 incident in Richmond, Virginia, when Mahdi stabbed a maintenance worker nearly to death. Justices also noted his multiple escape attempts while he was in jail, including as his trial began.
The justices wrote that Mahdi’s previous defense teams put up an adequate defense, arguing his decisions were affected by age, mental illness and a turbulent childhood. Every court that has considered those arguments has turned them down.
Mahdi’s crime spree began in Virginia, where he stole a gun and a car before fleeing south.
He later allegedly told investigators he fled after killing someone in a drug deal gone awry, but he was never charged for the crime, the state Supreme Court wrote.
Stopping in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Mahdi shot gas station clerk Christopher Boggs point-blank in the face before continuing on to South Carolina. Mahdi carjacked a man in Columbia, then fled in rural Calhoun County and hid out in a shed.
There, he shot Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers with his own gun, then lit his body on fire and stole his police car. Officers arrested Mahdi in Florida three days later.