Attorneys for a South Carolina loss of life row inmate whose execution is imminent are making a last-ditch argument that their shopper is incompetent to be executed partly due to his perception that he’s a sovereign citizen.
Steven Bixby and his father, Arthur Bixby, led a 12-hour gun battle with regulation enforcement in Abbeville, South Carolina, on Dec. 8, 2003, that resulted within the deaths of two cops.
The standoff, throughout which hundreds of rounds of ammunition have been exchanged between the Bixbys and police, stemmed from an try by the South Carolina Division of Transportation to widen a freeway by utilizing an easement on Bixby property. The Bixbys claimed that the easement was fabricated, or in any case irrelevant.
The household, together with Bixby’s mom Rita, was well-known for his or her sovereign citizen beliefs.
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Charles Grose speaks to his shopper, Steven Bixby, as responsible verdicts are learn in Bixby’s trial, Sunday, Feb. 18, 2007, in Abbeville, South Carolina. (AP Picture/Sefton Ipock, Pool)
The FBI labels sovereign residents as extremists and characterizes them as individuals who imagine they’re sovereign from america authorities and thus don’t have to reply to authorities authorities, together with regulation enforcement, courts, taxing entities and others. At finest, they’re a loosely affiliated group who maintain related beliefs, however most sovereign residents act on their very own with none central group guiding them.
They’re additionally recognized for submitting lawsuits in opposition to authorities authorities, a trait embodied by Rita Bixby, who filed unsuccessful lawsuits in opposition to state entities.
After the standoff, Steven Bixby was charged with two counts of homicide and one rely of legal conspiracy, and sentenced to loss of life in February 2007. Arthur and Rita Bixby have been charged within the assault too, and each have been sentenced to life in jail.
After exhausting his appeals by 2010, Bixby’s days have been numbered. Nevertheless, the state confronted a scarcity of deadly injection medicine, and indefinitely paused all executions. A 2021 state regulation allowed loss of life sentences to renew by way of firing squad or electrocution. After years of litigation, the state executed its first loss of life row inmate in 13 years, opening the door for Bixby’s execution.
Bixby was set to be executed final Could, till a choose postponed his execution date to find out if he’s mentally competent.
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Now, his attorneys say he can’t be executed as a result of he would not meet the state’s two-pronged check to declare competency for execution.
The primary prong echoes that of the U.S. Supreme Courtroom’s solely competency check: whether or not an individual understands that they will be executed, and why.
The South Carolina Supreme Courtroom has a second prong, established within the 1993 case Singleton v. State: whether or not an individual is ready to rationally talk with their counsel. Bixby’s attorneys are arguing that due to his ardent perception in sovereign citizenship and due to his timeless admiration and loyalty to his mother and father, he was genuinely unable to know that he confronted the loss of life penalty and that he couldn’t talk rationally together with his attorneys.
Steven Bixby talks to the media throughout a break in his arraignment on Dec. 9, 2003, as regulation enforcement officers look on in Greenwood, South Carolina. (AP Picture/Mary Ann Chastain)
Michael Meltsner, professor emeritus of regulation at Northeastern College, supplied commentary on the 2021 Darrell Brooks case, and spoke with Fox Information Digital about Bixby’s case. Brooks claimed to be a sovereign citizen and represented himself in courtroom after mowing down harmless individuals and killing six at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was sentenced to 6 life phrases plus 700 years in jail for his crimes.
“Well, first of all, just because you have a crazy belief, it does not serve as a defense to either a crime or an execution under the prevailing Supreme Court standard,” Meltsner mentioned. “The only way that could be relevant to what the hearing would be about is if it was relevant to the legal standard for insanity or the legal standard for having such a serious mental condition that you can’t be executed.”
However Meltsner mentioned the South Carolina Supreme Courtroom can have broader requirements for execution than the requirements set forth by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
“Of course, South Carolina could decide that the state can have a ‘higher’ or ‘better’ standard than the constitutional one,” he mentioned. “The South Carolina courts could decide, well, he can’t communicate with his lawyer and so we’re not going to execute him.”
The South Carolina Supreme Courtroom (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune Information Service by way of Getty Photographs)
As for whether or not Bixby’s sovereign citizenship makes him insane, and whether or not that argument will maintain up in courtroom, Meltsner would not know.
“Well, it’s a factual matter,” he mentioned. “It could be a terrible disability, and this guy sounds fairly crazy. It also could be at the other end of the continuum. It could be malicious and manipulative. But as a general matter, you can argue any damn thing you want in court. It’s up to the courts to decide what it means.”
Bixby nonetheless maintains that he was performing in self-defense and protection of his property.
Fox Information Digital reached out to Bixby’s attorneys.
The Bixby standoff
The Bixbys have been longtime sovereign residents stemming from their days dwelling in New Hampshire, the place Rita was a perpetual litigant in opposition to the state and the place Arthur was arrested for ignoring a courtroom’s order to pay $850 for greater than three years after a judgment in opposition to him.
Steven Bixby left New Hampshire for South Carolina within the Nineteen Nineties after a warrant for his arrest was issued for driving drunk with no license and skipping conferences together with his parole officers. His mom and father adopted shortly thereafter, resulting from a menace of foreclosures on their house for not paying taxes.
The FBI defines “sovereign citizens” as extremists. (Getty Photographs)
The South Carolina land dispute started within the early 2000s, when the state notified the Bixbys that their property had an easement, deeded by a earlier proprietor of the land to the state, permitting the state to make use of 20 ft on the sting of the property to widen Freeway 72 adjoining to the property if the state so selected.
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In 2003, the state was starting the widening course of and land surveyors have been making markings on the property to start the job, inflicting stress between state authorities and the Bixbys.
On the morning of Dec. 8, 2003, a surveyor known as the police on Steven and Arthur Bixby for threatening him.
Abbeville County sheriff’s Sgt. Danny Wilson responded to the decision and was instantly shot by Bixby. He was dragged contained in the Bixby house, shackled together with his personal handcuffs, and died someday through the 14-hour standoff that ensued.
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State constable Donnie Ouzts responded after communications from Wilson ceased. He, too, was instantly shot and killed by Bixby on the entrance garden of the property.
After a 14-hour gunfight with SWAT groups and regulation enforcement from across the state, Steven and Arthur Bixby have been lastly arrested.
