Anti-death penalty advocates make plea to governor as 6th inmate in 9 months faces execution

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — South Carolina inmate Stephen Stanko is set to die by lethal injection Friday evening, June 13th, at 6 p.m.

However ahead of the execution, a local group is pleading for his life — and calling for an end to capital punishment.

Reverend Hillary Taylor is the Executive Director of the group “South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.”

Thursday afternoon, she and other members provided Governor Henry McMaster’s office with a petition of over 6,000 people who are against all executions.

And with 57-year-old Stanko set to die by lethal injection on Friday, McMaster is now the only person who can stop it.

“All he has to do is say this execution doesn’t go forward and it stops. In fact, if the governor wanted, he could say executions stop now, and could push something through and all of a sudden, we could end the death penalty,” says Taylor.

Stanko has been sentenced to die for killing his friend Henry Turner in 2006. He also strangled his ex-girlfriend Laura Ling, and raped her daughter — slashing the teenager’s throat. She survived the attack and later testified against him.

Years prior, Stanko was convicted of assault and kidnapping, let out of prison two years before committing the murder.

“So we’re not here to excuse the harm that Stephen caused,” says Taylor, but rather, she says, they focus on “harm repair” — finding oftentimes executions only re-traumatize the family of victims who have already gone through immeasurable pain.

“They are forever associated with the person who caused this egregious harm who caused this awful thing, and it becomes more about the person who caused the harm and less about the person who actually died,” she says.

Taylor turned to her faith and referenced multiple stories throughout the Bible where she finds grace to be supported over punishment.

“There’s a lot more instances where God gives grace to people who deserve capital punishment rather than giving them capital punishment itself. God forces people to live through the ripples of the trauma they have enacted,” Taylor says.

On Thursday, a federal judge denied Stanko’s attorneys’ appeal to delay his execution over concerns of the effectiveness of lethal injection used on previous inmates.

Stanko is set to become the sixth inmate in just nine months to be executed in South Carolina.