Malloy v. South Carolina
Headline: Court upheld a state law switching executions from hanging to electrocution and allowed it to apply to earlier murder convictions, ruling the change did not increase punishment under the Constitution.
Holding: The Court held that a law changing execution from hanging to electrocution did not increase the punishment and could be applied to a prior murder conviction without violating the ban on retroactive laws.
- Allows states to change execution methods without automatically voiding past sentences.
- Moves executions to state penitentiaries and allows specified witnesses and medical attendants.
- Makes counties responsible for transporting condemned prisoners to the penitentiary.
Summary
Background
Joe Malloy was convicted of murder in Marlboro County, South Carolina, for an offense dated November 24, 1910. After the State Legislature approved a 1912 law changing the method of execution from hanging to electrocution at the state penitentiary, Malloy was sentenced under that law and challenged the sentence as improperly retroactive.
Reasoning
The central question was whether the 1912 law altered the punishment so as to make it an unlawful retroactive penalty (an "ex post facto" law, meaning a law that punishes conduct more severely after it happened). The Court reviewed earlier decisions and concluded the statute did not change the penalty of death itself but only the method of carrying it out, the place of execution, and some procedural details about witnesses and medical attendants. The opinion noted electrocution had been adopted elsewhere as a more humane method and found that those changes did not increase the punishment.
Real world impact
The ruling affirmed that a State may change how it carries out a death sentence without automatically violating the ban on retroactive laws, so long as the penalty itself remains the same. Practically, this permits executions to take place at the state penitentiary, allows specific kinds and numbers of witnesses and medical personnel, and imposes transportation costs on the county of conviction as provided by the statute. The decision left intact the conviction and sentence in Malloy’s case.
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