COLUMBIA They are called “volunteers” inmates who choose to give up their appeals and be put to death.
Whether they do it out of remorse, boredom or frustration the result is the same.
Hastings Wise appears to be one of them, heading to the death chamber Friday to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. for killing four workers at an Aiken County plant in September 1997 as revenge for his firing several weeks earlier.
Wise, who tried to commit suicide in the plant after the shootings by drinking insecticide, has asked to die since his arrest. He refused to let his lawyers call any witnesses to ask the jury to spare his life and has brushed off any attempts to appeal since he was sent to death row.
“At almost every opportunity he has expressed his wish to die,” said attorney Joseph Savitz, who also has represented other volunteers. “Once you get someone whose convinced they want to die, it’s difficult to change their minds.”
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Wise was sentenced to death for killing four workers during a shooting rampage he planned to coincide with shift change at the R.E Phelon plant, which makes ignition parts for lawnmowers. All four people killed either had something to do with Wise getting fired or took jobs he wanted, prosecutors said.
As he stood before the judge to have his sentence formally read after his 2001 trial, Wise said he was ready to receive his punishment. “I do not wish to take advantage of the court as far as asking for mercy. It was a fair trial. I committed these crimes,” he said in a voice so soft few in the courtroom could hear.
Wise will be the sixth person put to death in South Carolina without using all their appeals since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. All have died by lethal injection instead of the electric chair, and Savitz said that’s not a coincidence.
“Lethal injection has changed the dynamic of the whole thing,” Savitz said. “These guys are no longer scared to be put to death.”
Wise will be the 34th inmate put to death in South Carolina since 1976, meaning about 18 percent of the state’s executions have been volunteers. Nationwide, 117 of the 989 inmates, or nearly 12 percent, put to death since the death penalty was reinstated had appeals left, said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
The numbers fluctuate from year to year. In 2004, 10 of the 59 executions were done on volunteers. In 2003, it was just four deaths out of 65, according to the center’s statistics.
Many more inmates give up for a time, but change their minds, Dieter said.
“They get discouraged, they lose, lose, lose and give up. But then after a while, they decide to go after at least one more appeal,” Dieter said.
The six volunteers in South Carolina don’t hold much in common other than giving up their appeals. Three of them were executed in 1996, shortly after the state made lethal injection an option, said Mark Plowden, a spokesman with the state attorney general’s office.
The rush of volunteers also coincided with the arrival of former Corrections Department chief Michael Moore, who moved death row from Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, where executions continue to be carried out, to Lieber Correctional Institution in the Lowcountry.
Moore also used the move to make conditions harsher on death row, requiring inmates to stay in their cells 23 hours a day and have minimal contact with each other even outside of their cells.
The reasons the volunteers drop their appeals varies. Wise and the most recent volunteer, Michael Passaro, planned to commit suicide after their crimes. In Passaro’s case, he jumped from his burning van, but left his 2-year-old daughter the subject of a bitter custody battle strapped inside.
Doyle Cecil Lucas, put to death for killing a Rock Hill couple in a robbery, told his lawyer he was filled with remorse and hoped his death brought his victims’ family relief. And Michael Torrence, executed for killing two Midlands men in a robbery, asked to drop his appeals because he couldn’t see how spending 20 or 30 more years in prison was going to benefit him.
“If I could start a euthanasia clinic in downtown Columbia, I’d have more clients than I could handle,” Savitz said. “Sometimes life is tough. I’ve witnessed lethal injection. It’s an easy way to die.”
