ISSUE: Maximum sentences for trying to kill someone

OUR VIEW: Unsuccessful attempts should be more severely penalized

Should there be a vast difference in prison sentences depending upon whether an effort to kill someone is:

A. Successful

B. Unsuccessful but the person is hurt

C. Unsuccessful but the target is unhurt?

In South Carolina, a murder conviction can bring the death penalty or life sentence without parole.

A charge of assault and battery with intent to kill, meaning the victim was injured, can yield a maximum 20 years.

A charge of assault with intent to kill, meaning the victim was not hurt, carries a maximum 10 years.

This means a person with a weapon who shoots someone and kills him or her can face life in prison. If the victim is shot and injured, the time drops to no more than 20 years. If the shot misses the person, the time drops to 10 years.

First Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe is on a mission to change that, pushing legislation in the General Assembly that would stiffen the penalties for what the prosecutor has described as being a "bad shot."

Thank goodness for instances in which people fail to carry out their mission of killing. But does that warrant so much less punishment when a shot was fired with the intent to kill?

Pascoe cites the 2005 case of two Orangeburg County sheriff's deputies. One was shot at point-blank range but survived and escaped serious injury because of his bulletproof vest. Without it, he would be dead or, at best, seriously hurt.

The man found guilty of shooting the deputies had other legal problems, including two murder charges as well as a record that qualified him for life in prison based on the two-strikes law.

Otherwise, his sentence for shooting a deputy point blank, certainly intending to kill the officer, could have been only 10 years in prison. Had the bullet been placed just inches away and the deputy died, the maximum would have been the death penalty.

Pascoe supports a new charge of attempted murder, which could be lodged when case details warrant and which would carry a maximum life sentence.

"We've proposed some legislation where we've changed assault and battery to where it will carry 10 years to life," Pascoe told The T&D. "Assault and battery with intent to kill would be changed to assault in the first degree. Instead of up to 20 years, it's going to be a felony that carries up to 30 years."

The change is needed to eliminate inequity in the system and give judges the authority to remove from society those individuals who prove they are willing to kill by acting to do so.

Pascoe cited another case in which 1st Circuit Judge Jimmy Williams told a defendant he was being sentenced to 20 years because that's all the judge was authorized to pronounce. As Pascoe puts it: "You have to ask yourself, is 20 years enough time for attempted murder? My answer is no."

So is ours.

You must be logged in to comment.