Joseph Ernest Atkins was convicted of murder twice, sixteen years apart. In 1970 he received a sentence of life imprisonment, and he was paroled in 1980. On October 27, 1985, in North Charleston, South Carolina, two people died: his adoptive father and a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of neighbors. He was convicted of murder in both deaths, with other charges, and sentenced to death. The sentence was overturned on appeal, and in 1988 a jury imposed it again. Atkins was executed in South Carolina on January 22, 1999, at the age of 51.
The case turned on a single legal point. Because he had been convicted of murder in 1970, he was eligible for the death penalty in 1985, and that earlier conviction was the only factor that made the 1985 case capital.
Atkins was born about 1947. The first conviction arose from the death of his half-brother on December 31, 1969. A plea to a lesser charge had been considered, but it fell through in court. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, after a trial that lasted a day. He was paroled in 1980.
On October 27, 1985, in North Charleston, two people died. One was his adoptive father. The other was a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of neighbors. Atkins was charged and went to trial in 1986. The State relied on the 1970 conviction as the only aggravating factor that made the killings a capital case. The jury convicted him of murder in both deaths, with other charges, and he was sentenced to death.
The 1986 defense did not put forward a verdict of "guilty but mentally ill."
The first death sentence was overturned on appeal. Amnesty International described the ground as a technicality, and the convictions remained. In 1988 a jury sentenced Atkins to death again. Further appeals did not succeed, and the execution was set for January 22, 1999.
Amnesty International issued an appeal on December 21, 1998 urging the governor to grant clemency before the execution. It said the 1970 conviction may have followed an inadequate defense, that the lawyers at the 1986 trial had no experience of a capital case in South Carolina, that they had failed to investigate his background fully, and that the jury at the 1988 resentencing was not told the full range of mitigating evidence. Jim Hodges, who had taken office as governor earlier in January 1999, denied clemency.
Atkins was executed in South Carolina on January 22, 1999. He was the second person executed in the state that year, the 22nd since South Carolina resumed executions in 1985, the ninth in the United States in 1999 and the 509th since executions resumed nationally in 1977.
South Carolina's capital case against Atkins depended on a prior conviction. He was made eligible for the death penalty by a previous conviction for murder, and Amnesty International argued that the 1970 conviction had come from a one-day trial with an inadequate defense.
Amnesty International argued that Atkins was poorly defended both in 1970 and in 1986, that the jury in 1988 did not hear the full range of mitigating evidence, and that his conduct in 1985 might have been related to post-traumatic stress. These were arguments in a clemency appeal, and clemency was denied.
December 31, 1969: death of Atkins's half-brother, the subject of the 1970 murder conviction.
1970: convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
1980: paroled.
October 27, 1985: two deaths in North Charleston.
1986: convicted of murder in both deaths, with other charges; sentenced to death.
1988: resentenced to death by a jury.
December 21, 1998: Amnesty International issues its clemency appeal.
January 1999: Governor Jim Hodges denies clemency.
January 22, 1999: executed in South Carolina.