South Carolina’s execution chamber. (Provided/SC Department of Corrections)
COLUMBIA — Mikal Mahdi is set to be the last of five men executed in the state over a seven-month period, according to a Friday order from the state Supreme Court.
Steven Bixby, the other inmate who has exhausted his appeals, will not face the death chamber until a judge decides whether he is competent for execution, the state’s highest court said in an order Thursday.
Mahdi’s execution is scheduled for April 11.
Mahdi, 41, pleaded guilty in 2006 to shooting and killing 31-year-old police officer James Myers with one of his own rifle as part of a multi-state crime spree, according to court documents.
Executions resumed in the state last September, following an unintended 31-year pause, after the state Supreme Court ruled electrocution and firing squad were constitutional.
The state executed its first inmate by firing squad last week, after the three previous men chose to die by lethal injection. Mahdi will have until March 28, two weeks before his execution date, to choose how he will die.
Mikal Mahdi
Mahdi went on the run after stealing a pistol, a set of license plates and a station wagon in Virginia several days before. He drove to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where he shot gas station clerk Christopher Boggs point-blank in the head while the clerk was checking his ID to buy a beer.
Two days later, Mahdi carjacked a driver in Columbia and replaced the stolen car’s license plates with the ones he had stolen from Virginia.
He then stopped at a Calhoun County gas station, where a clerk grew suspicious after the pump declined his card.
The clerk called the police, and Mahdi fled on foot. He ran about a mile before hiding in a workshop behind Myers’ farmhouse.
When Myers, a captain with the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety, visited his workshop at the end of the day, Mahdi shot him nine times with one of the rifles Myers stored there, according to court documents.
Mahdi lit Myers’ body on fire, then stole his police truck. Police arrested Mahdi in Satellite Beach, Florida, a week after he stole the first car in Virginia.
Mahdi has attempted to escape prison four times since his arrest, most recently in 2022.
He has lost privileges repeatedly for violations such as possessing weapons and assault and battery of an employee, according to his prison records.
Steven Bixby
Bixby, 57, was expected to be the sixth and final of a series of inmates executed since the process resumed. But in a 3-2 split ruling, the state’s highest court put that on hold indefinitely.
Bixby was convicted in 2007 of killing two police officers during a 2003 standoff from his home in Abbeville County.
After transportation officials approached Bixby and his family about plans to use an easement to expand a highway over a portion of the family’s property, Bixby and his father stationed themselves at the house’s windows and shot at anyone who approached.
Bixby’s mother, Rita Bixby, was sentenced to life in prison for helping plan the ambush. His father, Arthur Bixby, was found unfit to stand trial because he had dementia. Both died in 2011, his mother in prison and his father in a mental institution.
While previous mental health evaluators found Bixby’s beliefs about the U.S. Constitution and government authority to be odd, they decided he remained fit to stand trial.
As executions continue in SC, these inmates can’t receive death warrants
Bixby and his family had views that aligned with the “sovereign citizens” movement of people who believe the law doesn’t apply to them, according to court documents.
More recent evaluations found that Bixby had “bizarre and inaccurate beliefs about the legal system” that made him unable to communicate effectively with his attorneys, one of the prongs state courts use to determine if an inmate is competent, according to court filings.
He has become unable to understand the evidence against him, his attorneys have argued.
Bixby will not be executed unless a Circuit Court judge decides he is competent, the state Supreme Court said in an order signed by three justices.
Bixby’s hearing must take place by Sept. 1 under the order, though judges’ decisions in competency cases can take years.
In his dissenting opinion, Justice John Few wrote that he was not convinced by the expert’s statement Bixby’s attorneys submitted to the court that Bixby is actually incompetent for execution.
Previous examinations have found Bixby is able to communicate with his attorneys, and the more recent statement Bixby’s attorneys submitted fails to prove otherwise, Few wrote.
Justice George James signed onto Few’s opinion.
“While I appreciate the caution the Court is showing in granting Bixby a hearing, I believe this caution is squarely inconsistent with the principles of law it is our solemn duty to apply, even in this admittedly difficult situation,” Few wrote.
Bixby will join three other death row inmates who have exhausted their appeals but have their executions on pause pending judges’ decisions about their competency to be executed. Two others have been found incompetent for execution.