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The lawyers of an Carolina de la Muerte’s inmate whose execution is imminent are making an argument of the last launch that their client is incompetent to be executed in part due to his belief that he is a sovereign citizen.
Steven Bixby and his father, Arthur Bixby, led a 12 -hour shooting with the police in Abbeville, South CarolinaOn December 8, 2003, that resulted in the death of two police officers.
The confrontation, during which thousands of rounds of ammunition between the Bixbys and the Police were exchanged, was derived from an attempt by the South Carolina Transportation Department of expanding a road using a servitude in the property of Bixby. The Bixbys affirmed that the servitude was manufactured, or in any irrelevant case.
The family, including Bixby’s mother, Rita, was known for her sovereign citizen beliefs.
Charles Grose talks to his client, Steven Bixby, while the guilt verdicts are read in Bixby’s Trial, Sunday, February 18, 2007, in Abbeville, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Sefton Ipock, Pool)
The FBI label sovereign citizens As extremists and characterize them as people who believe they are sovereign of the United States government and, therefore, do not have to respond to government authorities, including the application of the law, courts, tax entities and others. In the best case, they are a little affiliated group that has similar beliefs, but most sovereign citizens act on their own without any central organization that guides them.
They are also known for submitting demands against government authorities, a feature incorporated by Rita Bixby, who filed failed lawsuits against state entities.
After the confrontation, Steven Bixby was accused of two positions of murder and a charge of criminal conspiracy, and convicted of death in February 2007. Arthur and Rita Bixby were also accused in the attack, and both were sentenced to life imprisonment in prison.
After exhausting their appeals for 2010, Bixby’s days were counted. However, the State faced a Lethal injection drug scarcityand stopped indefinitely all executions. A state law of 2021 allowed death sentences to resume through the shooting squad or electrocution. After years of litigation, the State executed its First prison of the death corridor in 13 yearsOpening the door for the execution of Bixby.
Bixby was scheduled to be executed last May, until a judge postponed his execution date to determine if he is mentally competent.
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Now, his lawyers say he cannot be executed because he does not comply with the two -pointed test of the State to declare competence for execution.
The first tip echoes the only competence of the United States Supreme Court: if a person understands that it will be executed and why.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina has a second tip, established in the case of 1993 Singleton v. State: If a person can communicate rationally with his advice. Bixby’s lawyers argue that, due to their burning belief in sovereign citizens and due to their admiration and loyalty to their parents, he was really unable to understand that he faced the death penalty and that he could not communicate rationally with his lawyers.
Steven Bixby talks to the media during a break in its reading of charges on December 9, 2003, while law agents observe in Greenwood, South Carolina. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)
Michael Meltsner, Professor Emeritus of Law at the Northeastern University, provided comments on 2021 Darrell Brooks caseand spoke with Fox News Digital about the Bixby case. Brooks claimed to be a sovereign citizen and represented himself in court after cutting innocent people and killing six in a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was sentenced to six periods of life plus 700 years in prison for his crimes.
“Well, first of all, just because you have a crazy belief, it does not work as a defense or execution or execution under the standard of the prevailing Supreme Court,” said Meltsner. “The only way in which it could be relevant to what the audience would be is whether it was relevant to the legal standard for madness or legal standard to have such a serious mental condition that it cannot be executed.”
But Meltsner said the Supreme Court of South Carolina can have broader standards for the execution than the standards established by the United States Supreme Court.
“Of course, South Carolina could decide that the State can have a” higher ‘or’ better ‘standard than the constitutional, “he said. “The courts of South Carolina could decide, well, you cannot communicate with your lawyer and, therefore, we will not execute it.”
The Supreme Court of South Carolina (Tracy Glantz/The State/Tribune News Service through Getty Images)
As for whether Bixby’s sovereign citizenship drives him crazy, and if that argument will remain in court, Meltsner does not know.
“Well, it’s a matter of fact,” he said. “It could be a terrible disability, and this guy sounds quite crazy. It could also be at the other end of the continuum. It could be malicious and manipulative. But as a general issue, you can argue anything you want in court. It depends on the courts to decide what it means.”
Bixby still argues that he was acting in self -defense and defense of his property.
Fox News Digital communicated with Bixby lawyers.
Bixby’s confrontation
The Bixby were sovereign citizens for a long time derived from their days living in New Hampshire, where Rita was a perpetual litigator against the state and where Arthur was Arrested for ignoring the order of a court pay $ 850 for more than three years after a trial against you.
Steven Bixby left New Hampshire to South Carolina in the 1990s after an arrest warrant was issued to drive drunk without a license and omit meetings with their probation officers. His mother and father followed him shortly after, due to a threat of mortgage execution in his home for not paying taxes.
The FBI defines the “sovereign citizens” as extremists. (Getty images)
The dispute of the Earth of South Carolina began in the early 2000s, when the State notified the Bixbys that their property had a servitude, described by an earlier owner of the Earth to the State, allowing the State to use 20 feet on the edge of the property to expand the 72 highway adjacent to the property if the State used to.
In 2003, the State was starting the broad process and land topographs were making property marks to begin work, causing tension between state authorities and bixbys.
On the morning of December 8, 2003, a topograph Did you call the police In Steven and Arthur Bixby for threatening it.
Sheriff’s sergeant of Abbeville County. Danny Wilson responded to the call and Bixby shot him immediately. He was dragged into Bixby’s house, chained with his own wives, and died at some point during the 14 -hour confrontation he followed.
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State agent Donnie Ouzts responded after Wilson’s communications ceased. He was also immediately killed by Bixby in the front garden of the property.
After a 14 -hour shooting with Swat teams and the police throughout the state, Steven and Arthur Bixby were finally arrested.
