It’s not clear what the S.C. Supreme Court’s ruling this week will mean for York County’s two men on death row.
South Carolina has not executed anyone since 2011. But this week, the S.C. Supreme ruled the methods the state can use to execute convicted killers — including firing squad, the electric chair and lethal injection — are legal. The two local men who could be affected by that ruling are Mar-Reece Hughes, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for killing York County deputy Brent McCants at a traffic stop, and James “Jimmy” Robertson, who was sentenced to death in 1999 for beating his parents to death.
Hughes is now 58 years old. Robertson is 50. Both have spent exactly half their lives on death row. They are the only two from York County among the 32 men on South Carolina’s death row.
Hughes’ lawyer and court documents say the man has been ruled incompetent since being placed on death row. So, barring any change in status, Hughes may never be executed.
“If (Hughes) is incompetent, he cannot be executed,” said William Harry Ehlies II of Greenville, who is the appellate lawyer for both Hughes and Robertson.
Robertson’s case, even after 25 years, remains on appeal, according to Ehlies and state and federal court documents.
Ehlies declined to comment on specific details of each man’s case. He said: “The law works, and it is to be respected.”
Hughes — a cop shot dead
York County Sheriff’s Office deputy McCants, 23, was shot dead in a traffic stop in 1992 when two men attacked him. Dwayne Eric Forney and Hughes were caught hours later after a manhunt.
Forney was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He remains there.
A jury sentenced Hughes to death.
For over a decade, Hughes has been ruled incompetent to be executed, court documents show. He was competent to stand trial when he was convicted, records show.
Myra McCants, the mother of the victim, lived 28 years in outrage after that 1995 conviction because Hughes didn’t get executed. She died in 2023.
In dozens of interviews with The Herald over decades, she railed against the system where the death penalty sentence is rendered, but not used.
“My son received the death penalty,” Myra McCants said before she died. “No trial. No lawyers. Death.”
Robertson — killing for money
Robertson was convicted of killing his parents, Earl and Terry Robertson, for $2 million in cash and insurance. He was caught in Pennsylvania after the bodies were found.
Robertson left a trail of credit card purchases and evidence he threw out in trash bins along the way from York County to near Philadelphia, police and prosecutors said. A neighbor also saw Robertson leaving his parents’ home in his father’s car on that evening in November 1997, after another person found the bodies, officials said.
In 2010, when a date was set for Robertson to be executed, he filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for a halt until appeals were finished.
Robertson’s state case is now on appeal to the S.C. Supreme Court, according to state and federal court records and Ehlies, his lawyer.
Prosecutors: No doubt guilty, death penalty deserved
Current 16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett and former solicitor Tommy Pope, now a S.C. Statehouse representative, prosecuted Hughes and Robertson.
Each said this week there is no doubt Robertson and Hughes committed the crimes they were convicted of and received the legal punishment the state allowed. Evidence against both was overwhelming and convincing, they said.
“There is no question of their guilt,” Brackett said of Hughes and Robertson.
Brackett, who has voiced public concerns for years about how appeals in death penalty cases affect crime victims’ families, said there is no timetable for either case to finish in appeals courts.
“Given the posture, there is no end in sight,” Brackett said. “They remain on death row.”
Both Brackett and Pope stayed in touch with Myra McCants until her death. Pope said this week’s court decision should mean the state can now carry out legal executions that evaded victims.
“The court’s decision is a victory for crime victims who often wait for years hoping for justice for the slaying of a loved one,” Pope said. “Adding the additional methods of execution will hopefully remove the logjam clever defense attorneys have used for years to thwart these lawful sentences from being carried, out, creating further heartache for victims.”
Death penalty opponents: doesn’t make public safer
But in a statement after the S.C. Supreme Court ruling, South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty called the decision that could restart executions “irresponsible.” The group said the death penalty is ineffective.
“Killing the 32 people on death row who are already behind bars does nothing to make us safer,” the statement said.
Rock Hill defense attorney Chris Wellborn said he could not comment on the two pending York County cases of death row inmates. He did say the court decision means death penalty methods are constitutional, but capital punishment does not make society safer.
Capital punishment is not an option in most western countries, Wellborn said. And further, a murder conviction in South Carolina already carries a sentence of a mandatory 30 years in prison up to life, Wellborn said.
Concerns remain about innocent people whose cases are later overturned by DNA or other evidence being put to death, Wellborn said.
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