Execution date set for man who killed Simpsonville store owner

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A man who killed a Simpsonville convenience store owner will be put to death Dec. 2, the state Supreme Court has announced.

Shawn Humphries, 34, was convicted 11 years ago of murder in the shooting death of Mendal Alton "Dickie" Smith on New Year's Day 1994 at his store. Prosecutors said Humphries and a friend decided to rob the store after drinking beer all day.

Surveillance tape at his trial showed Humphries going into the store and flashing a gun at Smith. When Smith reached under the counter, the tape showed Humphries fire a shot and run away. Smith was struck once in the head.

The friend, Edward Gerald Blackwell, stayed in the store and told police what happened, according to testimony. He is serving a life sentence for his own murder conviction.

Humphries has exhausted all his normal appeals, according to the state attorney general's office.

Under state law, Humphries can choose to die by lethal injection or electrocution. If he makes no decision by Nov. 18, he will die in the electric chair.

Humphries had his death sentence overturned for a brief time by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who ruled prosecutors should not have compared the value of Humphries' life to the life of the victim. But less than a year later, the full court reversed that decision.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Joe Watson reminded jurors how Smith grew up on a small farm with no hot water and went to work as a meat cutter at a grocery store in ninth grade so his family could buy a car.

Watson then compared the two lives, saying in 1984, Smith was getting married, while Humphries was breaking in two houses. In 1988, Smith celebrated the birth of his daughter while Humphries went to prison for two years.

"When you look at the character of Humphries, and when you look at Smith, how profane when you look at all the circumstances of this crime and of this defendant, how profane to give this man a gift of life under these circumstances," Watson said, according to a transcript of the trial.

Humphries' attorneys said no one should ever be executed because their life is considered less valuable than someone else's life.

But the court ruled prosecutors were showing the uniqueness of Smith's life and using Humphries' criminal record to rebut witnesses who talked about the defendant's tough life.

Defense witnesses testified Humphries' father often reminded him he was conceived when he raped his mother at knifepoint and that Humphries' father gave him drugs and alcohol before he became a teenager.

Humphries, who was 22 at the time of the shooting, has a long criminal record that started when he broke into houses at age 13.

Smith's family has seen even more tragedy since his death. In May 2000, his brother, Jerry Smith, was killed in the Spartanburg convenience store he owned by Eric Dale Morgan. Morgan was originally sentenced to death, but is now serving life in prison after the U.S. Supreme Court banned the death penalty for defendants under the age of 18 at the time of the crime.