State v. Wilson

Toal, Justice:

The primary issue which we address in this appeal is whether a sentence of death for a defendant who pleads or is found “guilty but mentally ill,” as that verdict is defined by South Carolina statute, violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Stated in a different fashion, the question we answer here is whether a person, acting under what amounts to an “irresistible impulse” to commit an offense, may constitutionally be sentenced to death for the commission of that offense. We hold that the Eighth Amendment does…