South Carolina lost a second time in the Fourth Circuit Wednesday after the court reaffirmed its earlier ruling that a prisoner’s death sentence is unconstitutional.
The US Supreme Court vacated the appellate court’s first judgment against South Carolina last year after considering a different capital punishment case in Arizona, where it ruled federal habeas courts can’t hold evidentiary hearings for state prisoners except under certain conditions.
Though the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit relied on evidence produced at a federal evidentiary hearing as part of the basis for its now-vacated first opinion, the appellate court’s latest decision ...