Southeast
Condemned SC man's case about 'appropriate punishment' as he awaits 'inhumane' firing squad execution: lawyer
EXCLUSIVE: As a South Carolina man on death row prepares to be put to death by firing squad, his lawyer argues that the case is a matter of “appropriate punishment” rather than guilt as he seeks to stop his client’s execution.
Mikal Mahdi, 42, is set to be executed on Friday at 6 p.m. at a prison in Columbia after pleading guilty to the 2004 killing of an off-duty police officer.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Mahdi’s lawyer, David Weiss, said his client’s case raises questions about “appropriate punishment” given the inmate’s life struggles and growth as a person in the years since the crime was committed.
“It’s a question of what’s the appropriate punishment, given the life experiences of the person, everything they went through and the reasons why things ended up as they did, with really tragic crimes being committed,” Weiss said. “But almost without exception, what you see is when tragic crimes are committed, the person who committed them also went through incredibly difficult life experiences that led them down that path. And that’s what happened here.”
SECOND SOUTH CAROLINA INMATE CHOOSES EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD
Mikal Mahdi, 42, is set to be executed on Friday at 6 p.m. at a prison in Columbia. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
Mahdi is a “much different person” now than when he committed the capital crimes at age 21, Weiss said, saying that his client was a “confused, angry kid” at the time who has since grown up and matured a lot. Weiss explained that Mahdi is now an “intelligent, thoughtful person who spends as much time as he can reading and learning about the world.”
Weiss said Mahdi accepts responsibility for what he did and knows what he did was horrible. He said Mahdi understands that he must be punished for his crimes and that he could be executed.
But Weiss warned that if South Carolina carries out the execution, it will be killing someone who is a “very different person from the person who committed the capital crimes in the first place.”
Mahdi would be the fifth person to be executed by firing squad in the U.S. since 1976 – with the first three carried out in Utah – and the second in South Carolina after Brad Sigmon, 67, was put to death using that method last month. Sigmon was the first person to be executed by firing squad in 15 years.
Given the choice of lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad, Weiss said Mahdi chose the lesser of three evils. He noted that lethal injection was previously believed to be more humane before it was later determined to be “quite torturous” and that electrocution is cruel since a person is being “cook[ed] from the inside out.”
“If the execution goes through, they’re going to fire three high-powered rifles at our client’s chest,” Weiss said. “It’s a horrible thing for him to go through. It’s a horrible thing to have to witness for everybody involved, from the legal team to witnesses to prison staff who have to carry it out.”
In the death chamber, Mahdi will be strapped to a chair and have a hood over his head and a target over his heart. Three shooters will fire at him through a small opening about 15 feet away.
Bo King, a lawyer who represented Sigmon, detailed what he witnessed when his client was put to death on March 7.
“Seeing how he was restrained, he was tied to the chair with his arms pulled back far enough, almost as if someone had him in a wrestling hold, holding his arms behind his back. And then with his chin and jaw secured to the chair with some kind of strap,” King told Fox News Digital.
SOUTH CAROLINA SETS DATE FOR 5th EXECUTION IN UNDER 7 MONTHS
Brad Sigmon was executed in March for beating to death his estranged girlfriend’s parents in Greenville County in 2001. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
“What has stayed with me and continues to trouble me is how he reacted after being shot, specifically watching his right arm pull so frantically on the straps, tying it to the chair,” he continued. “And every muscle in his arm popped out, and it looked like an anatomical drawing. It just looked like he was trying so desperately to pull his arm free and cover the hole in his chest.”
King said he remembers watching the wound open in the middle of Sigmon’s chest.
“It’s a difficult sight to reconcile in real time,” he said. “You’re watching it happening. You’re thinking, I just saw a hole open up in that person.”
King also explained that he believes it is inhumane to tie someone down to kill them, emphasizing that “the amount of damage that I saw done to Brad’s body is beyond anything that I would consider.”
Three other prisoners have been put to death in South Carolina since the state resumed executions in September. Freddie Owens on Sept. 20, Richard Moore on Nov. 1 and Marion Bowman Jr. on Jan. 31 all died by lethal injection. Sigmon chose the firing squad due to concerns about the prolonged suffering the three other inmates had faced when they were killed by lethal injection, King said.
In Mahdi’s case, Weiss expressed concern that his client would be executed “even though he never had the fair trial that the Constitution is supposed to guarantee.”
“The whole question at his trial was what punishment did he deserve? In order to make a reasoned decision about that, the trial judge needed to be given all the information about who Mikal was, what he went through in his life, tragically,” Weiss explained.
Earlier this week, South Carolina’s highest court rejected a final appeal from Mahdi’s lawyers. His lawyers argued that his original attorneys made a poor case in attempting to spare his life and failed to call on relatives, teachers or other people who knew him in his sentencing defense, but the state Supreme Court ruled that many of those same arguments had been made in previous unsuccessful appeals.
During his trial, Mahdi’s lawyers said their client was the second son of a woman who was wedded in an arranged marriage at 16 years old. His family described a chaotic childhood, although nobody testified about abuse or mental illness.
Weiss told Fox News Digital that the trial judge who handed down the sentence was given very little information and Mahdi’s defense called a single witness who testified for just a few minutes, giving only a broad outline of Mahdi’s “extraordinarily traumatic childhood” that began when he was a toddler and extended through his early adolescent years.
“When he needed additional support at school, the teachers tried to provide it, but his dad pulled him out of school rather than allowing him to get that support for his depression, for his suicidal feelings and things just spiraled from there where he went into the juvenile prison system for fairly minor crimes, and he ends up spending thousands of hours in solitary confinement as a kid,” Weiss said.
As early as second grade, Mahdi suffered from mental despair and discussed self-harm. He already had a criminal record by the time he was a teenager, spending weeks in solitary confinement after being convicted of breaking and entering and attacking a police officer in Virginia.
“We know today in a way that we just didn’t appreciate back then when Mikal was in the system, how damaging that is to a person’s development,” he continued. “And the judge who decided what sentence Mikal should have was told almost nothing about his story.”
CONVICTED DOUBLE MURDERER EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD IN SOUTH CAROLINA
This photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state’s death chamber in Columbia, including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. (South Carolina Department of Corrections/AP)
Weiss added: “That’s the real injustice here, and that’s the real outrage here.”
Mahdi stole a gun and a car in Virginia on July 14, 2004, arrest records show. The next day, he shot and killed a North Carolina store clerk as the clerk was checking his identification. A couple of days later, he carjacked someone at an intersection in Columbia, South Carolina.
On July 18, 2004, while on the run after those crimes, Mahdi hid in the shed of Orangeburg, South Carolina, public safety officer James Myers. Mahdi ambushed Meyers when the officer returned from a birthday celebration for his wife, sister and daughter, prosecutors said.
Myers, 56, was shot eight or nine times, including twice in the head after falling to the ground. A pathologist testified that at least seven of the shots would have been fatal.
Mahdi then set Myers’ body on fire and ran away. Myers’ wife discovered her husband’s dead body in the shed, which they had used for the backdrop of their wedding.
On July 21, 2004, Mahdi was taken into custody in Florida. When one of the officers involved in his arrest learned what he was wanted for in South Carolina, he thanked Mahdi for not shooting at him. Mahdi told him that the only reason he did not was because he was skeptical that he could successfully shoot two officers and their K-9 and get away with it.
While behind bars, Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could have used to escape. One was an Allen wrench and the others were homemade handcuff keys, including one that was found under his tongue at his trial.
On death row, Mahdi stabbed a guard and struck another worker with a concrete block. On three occasions, prison staff found sharpened metal in his cell that could be used as a knife.
After he pleaded guilty to murder, Mahdi was sentenced by Judge Clifton Newman, who at the time told The Post and Courier that he was not sure he believed in the death penalty, but the case became bigger than his beliefs.
“My challenge and my commitment throughout my judicial career has been to temper justice with mercy and to seek to find the humanity in every defendant that I sentence,” Newman said as he handed down Mahdi’s punishment. “That sense of humanity seems not to exist in Mikal Deen Mahdi”
Once one of the busiest for executions, South Carolina resumed executions in September after a 13-year pause caused in part by the state having difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ concerns that they would have to disclose they had sold the drugs to state officials.
The room where inmates are executed in Columbus, South Carolina. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
The state legislature then passed a shield law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers private. The legislature also approved the firing squad as another execution method over difficulties obtaining the drugs.
South Carolina has executed 47 inmates since the death penalty was resumed in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state was carrying out an average of three executions per year. Only nine states have killed more inmates.
If Mahdi runs out of legal appeals, including petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issues in the state high court’s ruling, his only remaining option would be for Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to reduce his sentence to life without parole, which Mahdi’s lawyers have already requested. But no South Carolina governor has granted clemency in the 49 years since the death penalty resumed in the U.S.
“I think Gov. McMaster has an opportunity to change that, and he should change it,” Weiss said.
A spokesperson for McMaster’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that the governor had received the petition from Mahdi’s lawyers asking for clemency.
“As the governor has done previously, he will review and carefully consider the petition,” the spokesperson said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the South Carolina Department of Corrections for comment.
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Southeast
Virginia prosecutor’s record on violent offenders scrutinized after illegal immigrant charged in mom’s murder
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A prosecutor in Virginia is facing criticism after a Fairfax County Police Department officer warned the county’s commonwealth attorney about a criminal illegal immigrant who has racked up over 30 arrests before allegedly killing a mother.
Abdul Jalloh, 32, was charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly stabbed a mother to death while at a bus stop in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Feb. 23. Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney Steve Descano’s office, however, was warned several times about how dangerous Jalloh is, and dismissed many of his previous criminal charges.
Jalloh’s case is far from the only controversial actions by Descano’s office, which even includes a plea deal with a murder suspect that allows him the chance at freedom.
POLICE WARNED PROSECUTORS 3 TIMES ABOUT VIOLENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT BEFORE HE ALLEGEDLY KILLED VIRGINIA MOTHER
Here’s a list of controversial cases handled by Descano’s office:
Abdul Jalloh
Abdul Jalloh, 32, is accused of killing Stephanie Minter, 41, at a Virginia bus stop. (Fox 5 DC)
Jalloh, 32, was charged with second-degree murder after he allegedly stabbed a mother to death while at a bus stop in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Feb. 23. The victim, 41-year-old Stephanie Minter, was found dead with multiple stab wounds to her upper body, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Jalloh has a violent rapsheet dating back to 2014 and includes over 30 arrests with several charges dismissed by Descano’s office.
Jalloh was arrested the next day while he was allegedly trying to steal from a liquor store when an employee called 911. Officials said Jalloh came to the U.S. illegally in 2012 from Sierra Leone under the Obama administration.
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer on Jalloh in 2020, and he was later issued a final order of removal allowing him to be deported to any country other than Sierra Leone. Despite that order, he was not deported.
A police major for the Fairfax County Police Department even warned Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano about Jalloh on at least three separate occasions, according to emails obtained by WJLA.
In one email to Fairfax County Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Jenna Sands, the police major said Jalloh “is one of the repeat (and violent) offenders” that they had discussed before.
TRAVIS COUNTY DA FACES RENEWED ‘SOFT ON CRIME’ CRITICISM AFTER CAREER CRIMINAL CHARGED WITH MURDER
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano speaking at an event. (Sarah Voisin/Getty Images)
“I wanted to get your background on why he is out so soon and ask if his prior suspended sentence (of I believe 5 years) was pursued by your office? Unfortunately, based on MTV Station’s numerous dealings with him, it is not a question of if, but rather when he will maliciously wound (or worse) again. My role of keeping the public safe, prompts me to follow up on his status,” the major wrote.
A Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the office “was aware of Jalloh’s criminal history and shared police concerns about potential future dangerousness. That is why our Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney personally handled these cases.”
The spokesperson added that prosecutors “will often explore many different pathways to successful prosecution, but, at the end of the day, our decisions are constrained by what testimony is available and what is legally permissible and practicable in Fairfax courts.”
Joshua Danehower
In 2022, Joshua Danehower was arrested for the murder of Gret Glyer. (Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office)
In 2022, Danehower was charged with Gret Glyer’s murder. According to WUSA 9, Glyer, who owned the donation platform DonorSee, was shot 10 times as he slept next to his wife on June 24, 2022.
Prosecutors alleged Danehower killed Glyer because of an obsession with his wife. The suspect allegedly became fixated with her after a church function, and according to her family, the two had gone on a date about a decade ago.
Danehower was given a plea deal by Descano’s office, which found him not guilty by reason of insanity in February.
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Virginia law requires Danehower to be sent to a psychiatric hospital, where his status will be evaluated on an annual basis for the next five years, then every two years afterward. If he’s deemed no longer a threat to himself or others, he’d have an opportunity to be released from the psychiatric hospital.
Heather Glyer, the victim’s wife, said while on the witness stand, “I was robbed of my life partner.”
“My kids were robbed of their father,” she added.
Wilmer Osmany Ramos-Giron
Wilmer Osmany Ramos-Giron pleaded guilty to lesser charges. (DHS)
In January 2025, according to a report by former Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, Ramos-Giron, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, choked his ex-wife during an argument and pulled out a knife.
He was charged with felony abduction by force, felony strangulation, and misdemeanor assault and battery against a family member after the incident, but Descano’s office allowed him to plead to lesser charges of misdemeanor battery and brandishing a bladed weapon.
In a statement released by Fairfax Commonwealth’s Attorney Deputy Chief of Staff and Public Information Officer Laura Birnbaum, according to the report, the plea agreement “achieved the outcomes that the victim wanted.”
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However, when the victim spoke with 7News, she refuted Birnbaum’s statement, saying she didn’t agree to the plea deal.
“He’s dangerous,” she said, fearing another violent incident would happen.
“If I die, who is going to take care of them?” the victim asked, referring to her children.
Ronnie Reel
Ronnie Reel accepted a plea deal by Fairfax county prosecutors. (Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office)
In July 2021, Reel was arrested on charges of sexual penetration, forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery against a minor, according to the Fairfax County Times.
During Reel’s trial on Sept. 13, 2022, Chief Judge of the Fairfax County Circuit Court Penney Azcarate ruled that the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney’s office had missed an evidentiary deadline, meaning confessions, including a call from Reel to a defendant’s mother where he allegedly confessed, as well as other evidence and witnesses couldn’t be used in court.
According to the outlet, that meant the case would rely on the victim’s testimony entirely.
As a result, Reel was offered a plea deal and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery and was sentenced to one year in prison, but was released on time served. He also wasn’t required to register as a sex offender, according to FOX 5.
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The mother, who asked to be identified as Amber, told FOX 5 the case has had a big impact on her son.
“I was really upset. This is my child, this is my baby,” she said while crying. “And he got no justice. So he continues to see me cry and everything. He held his own, he stayed strong. He’s always trying to be strong for mom.”
“He was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach,” she added. “It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.
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Immigration enforcement is a core federal power. Under Article I of the Constitution, Congress has the duty to write our federal immigration laws. Under Article II, the President has the duty to enforce them. States cannot meddle and certainly not obstruct. Unfortunately, many Democrat states, especially Virginia, are on a deadly collision course with the federal government.
American voters gave President Trump and the Republican-led Congress a broad electoral mandate to reverse the disaster the Biden-Harris border policy caused in every state in America by mass importing as many as 20 million illegal aliens, including the worst of the worst around the world.
Activist judges and other Democrat politicians and election deniers have done everything they can fathom to thwart Trump’s constitutional duty to expel these dangerous illegal aliens.
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The latest example is Virginia, which is passing a series of unconstitutional laws that would dangerously and illegally obstruct ICE. These proposals include criminal penalties, meaning that state law enforcement would attempt to arrest and jail ICE agents for simply doing their jobs.
This effort is seditious, insurrectionist, extremely dangerous and blatantly unconstitutional. For the sake of the Republic, the Justice Department must immediately and aggressively quell this Virginia seditious conspiracy.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Davis Spanberger laughs aloud during a ceremony in a Virginia court in Richmond. (Mike Kropf-Pool/Getty Images)
Fairfax County District Attorney Steve Descano is the Soros puppet Democrat prosecutor in the DC suburb, an uber-wealthy Democrat enclave that is an albatross around Virginia’s neck. Abdul Jalloh is an illegal alien who invaded our country in 2012. Jalloh settled in Virginia and began wreaking havoc on the good citizens there, racking up a whopping 30 arrests. These included one for rape and four charges for stabbing Americans.
Yet, thanks to the willful ineptitude of Fairfax County’s Democrat regime, Jalloh only had one felony conviction. He violated his probation, spent three months in jail and went free because of a deal between his lawyer and Descano’s office. Sanctuary jurisdictions like Fairfax County do not notify ICE when detaining or releasing illegals like Jalloh, who had a final order of removal from 2020.
Police in Fairfax repeatedly warned Descano’s office via email that Jalloh’s release would endanger the public, but the pleas fell on deaf ears. Earlier this week, Jalloh allegedly stabbed to death 41-year-old innocent mother Stephanie Minter at a bus stop.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate Democrat. But after her inauguration this year, she immediately showed her true leftist colors. She issued an order prohibiting cooperation between state officials and ICE.
Several anti-ICE bills await Spanberger’s signature: (1) a prohibition against ICE arrests at courthouses (where these alleged dangerous criminal illegals visit daily); (2) a prohibition against ICE arrests within 40 feet of polling places (where illegals violate federal criminal laws by voting); and (3) criminal penalties for ICE agents who wear masks (because they don’t want to get doxxed and killed).
Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano (Sarah Voisin/Getty Images)
If Spanberger signs these unconstitutional state laws, the Trump Justice Department should immediately sue and seek to enjoin them in court. A Virginia federal judge should issue an injunction, following the lead of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which fully stayed California’s unconstitutional prohibition against ICE agents’ use of masks.
But civil enforcement is not enough. Virginia Democrat officials plotting to arrest ICE agents for doing their jobs (seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 2384) — and especially those who cause the arrests (insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383, assault, kidnapping, harboring, conspiracy, and more) — must go to federal prison for their serious federal felonies. If anyone gets killed in a deadly standoff between these new Virginia confederates and ICE, these Virginia Democrat officials must face felony murder charges.
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Former President Biden and his missing-in-action border czar Kamala Harris allowed millions of illegal immigrants, including the most violent and dangerous criminals in the world, to pour across our borders. Trump is doing everything in his power to fulfill his broad electoral mandate and undo the damage by arresting and deporting these illegals.
Virginia’s proposed laws do not merely prohibit communication between state officials and ICE; rather, they criminalize federal law enforcement actions that are plainly within the scope of federal immigration enforcement power.
Abdul Jalloh has racked up over 30 arrests since entering the U.S., according to officials. (DHS)
States do not have to help ICE by, for instance, providing law enforcement resources to assist in ICE apprehensions of illegals. But states certainly cannot subvert or obstruct these federal efforts. This is especially true of Virginia’s attempt to arrest ICE agents in the line of duty, which could justify their use of deadly force.
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Virginia’s attempt to subvert and obstruct federal law must fail. We fought the Civil War because the Confederacy, headquartered in Virginia, sought to nullify federal law with respect to slavery. Today’s Virginia Democrats are reverting to their confederate roots.
Just as the federal government did during the Civil War and for a century after when segregationist states continued their efforts to nullify federal law, the federal government now must stand strong against Virginia’s sedition and insurrection. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes plain that federal law is supreme in areas where the federal government has authority.
If Virginia gets away with effectively nullifying federal immigration enforcement, other states can nullify any other federal law that it finds distasteful. Let’s hope Abigail Spanberger comes to her senses and vetoes this insanity. If she does not, the federal government must use all tools at its disposal, including the Insurrection Act of 1807 and other federal criminal statutes, to preserve federal law.
Virginia state officials must go to federal prison for engaging in seditious conspiracy, insurrections and other very serious federal felonies. Anything less would threaten the existence of the Republic.
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Southeast
South Carolina pastor describes evacuating members from Middle East after war broke out during Israel trip
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SUMMERVILLE, S.C. – Dozens of members of a South Carolina church are finally back in the United States after Operation Epic Fury left them stranded in Israel for nearly a week after their flight was supposed to depart.
Forty members of Calvary Chapel Summerville landed in Israel on Feb. 20 for eight days of exploration in the Holy Land.
The group was set to fly home on Feb. 28 and had arrived at the airport three hours before their scheduled departure when the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. The attack prompted the closure of Israel’s airspace and the group had to evacuate the airport.
“It felt like the weight of the world on my shoulders and I just prayed and prayed and prayed and asked God to give me wisdom,” said Vic Carroll, pastor at Calvary Chapel Summerville in South Carolina.
TRAVELERS STRANDED IN DUBAI PAYING HUGE SUMS TO FLEE ON PRIVATE CHARTER FLIGHTS AMID OPERATION EPIC FURY
Members of Calvary Chapel Summerville visit Al-Khazneh in Petra. (Melanie Carroll)
Carroll said the group had to shelter-in-place in Israel, going in and out of bomb shelters for several days. He then had to face the decision of the group staying or taking a bus to Jordan to have a shot at getting a flight back to the United States.
“We ultimately, you know, made the decision between what was bad and what was worse. I thought the worst would be to stay,” the pastor said.
“We were instructed that if a siren goes off while we were on the road, the bus would pull over, we would all need to get on the ground, lay on the ground face-down for at least 10 minutes until the threat was gone, and then be on our way,” he continued.
STATE DEPARTMENT USES PATRIOTS TEAM PLANE TO EVACUATE AMERICANS FROM MIDDLE EAST
The members of Calvary Chapel Summerville sightseeing in the Holy Land. (Melanie Carroll)
Fortunately, that did not happen and the group made it to the airport in Jordan to hop on a flight out of the Middle East Thursday morning.
Before the flight, Carroll said it was frightening, but their faith was greater than their fear.
“We’re just having to trust that we’re making the right decision, and this is our only option to get home, so we [were] just trusting in God,” he said.
AMERICAN STUCK IN MIDDLE EAST ESCAPES IN RACE TO REACH CRITICALLY ILL HUSBAND IN CALIFORNIA
The group returned to the U.S. on Thursday night, landing at JFK in New York.
Melanie Carroll, the pastor’s wife, texted, “We are so thankful!!!!! It’s surreal!!”
Melanie and Vic Carroll while visiting The Holy Land. (Kailey Schuyler)
The unexpected extension of the trip caused the price tag to increase significantly. Melanie created a GoFundMe, writing, “The path to get us home between lodging, flights and transfers will be upwards of $2500 per person.”
The group was able to raise their goal of $100,000 in less than three days.
Melanie said the group is continuing to pray for everyone trying to get out of the Middle East.
Nearly 24,000 Americans have returned to the U.S. after fleeing the Middle East since Operation Epic Fury began last week, according to the State Department.
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