The following statement was issued by 8th Circuit Solicitor David M. Stumbo regarding Steven Bixby's competence to be executed:
“It has been almost 22 years since Abbeville County Deputy Danny Wilson and Constable Donnie Outzs were senselessly taken by Steven Bixby and his family for simply trying to do their jobs as public servants. It has been over 18 years since Bixby was given his day in court under our Constitution and a jury of his peers convicted him of the murders and sentenced him to death. It is far past time for this sentence to be carried out so that the Wilson and Outzs families, law enforcement, and the Abbeville community as a whole can finally close the book on this devastating crime.
“The evidence presented in the proceedings this week have confirmed that Steven Bixby far exceeds the standard for competency required by the laws of our State to be executed. We are confident that the Court has all the tools that it needs to deny the motion of Bixby’s attorneys so that the Department of Corrections can carry out this long-awaited sentence soon.”
This is a case from Abbeville County which borders Laurens County to the west.
Delusions or political opinions? SC judge to decide if inmate is competent for execution
Steven Bixby told a judge he believed he was justified in killing two police officers in 2003
GREENVILLE — Death row inmate Steven Bixby believes any judge who has ruled against him is satanic, most laws are unconstitutional and an angel was present when he gunned down two police officers more than two decades ago.
Whether those are political and religious opinions or delusions was the question posed to a Greenville County judge during a two-day hearing that concluded Friday.
Bixby believes he is competent and wanted to talk directly to a judge to argue his innocence.
In the courtroom Friday, he said he did nothing wrong in gunning down two officers during a daylong standoff over a planned road widening that would take a piece of the Bixby family’s Abbeville property.
A jury found Bixby guilty of killing Sheriff’s Deputy Danny Wilson and Constable Donnie Ouzts and recommended a sentence of death in 2007.
“They keep saying victim, victim, victim,” the 58-year-old told Judge R. Scott Sprouse. “They are not victims. A perpetrator has never been a victim.”
Bixby believes his conviction was illegal because it didn’t follow his reading of the Constitution, which gives treason as the only reason for the death penalty, he said. He believes prosecutors and judges conspired against him to bury evidence. And he believes that if he can get his thoughts in front of the right court, then he will leave prison.
Wearing a green jumpsuit, glasses and a frown, Bixby took notes during the experts’ testimony, nodding in agreement when they listed his beliefs and shaking his head when they called those same beliefs false.
“I’m just tired,” Bixby told the judge. “I’m absolutely, positively tired. There’s no meat in this (case). This shouldn’t have gone on as far as it has, and if it had been dealt with, my filings, since day one, I would’ve been free anyway.”
During his 11-minute address, Bixby mostly complained about perceived legal injustices in his case.
His arguments highlight the “bizarre beliefs” that make him incompetent for execution, defense attorney Joshua Snow Kendrick argued.
Bixby is out of normal appeals. He was among inmates expected to receive a death warrant when executions resumed last September, but the state Supreme Court paused his case long enough to determine whether he’s competent.
Along with his beliefs about the legal system, Bixby thinks patterns he finds in sequences of numbers hold special meaning to him. And he thinks God protected him from bullets during the 2003 shootout, claiming the blood of Christ was on his clothing afterward, Kendrick said.
All four psychiatrists who testified agreed that Bixby met the federal bar for competence, which says an inmate must understand what their execution means and the link between their crime and the punishment.
But South Carolina’s law is looser than the federal test. An inmate must be able to “rationally communicate” with their attorneys and understand the court proceedings, according to precedent set by the state Supreme Court.
Bixby can communicate with his attorneys. The question is whether he’s rational when he does so.
The substance of his unshakeable beliefs is so far removed from reality that his attorneys can’t speak to him about his case or get any new information from him that they might use for appeals, Kendrick said.
“What you have heard is a person who’s going to communicate with his attorneys, who will be nice to them sometimes, but that’s not the question,” Kendrick said. The question, he said, is whether Bixby’s lawyers can do their job effectively, which is “not going to happen,” Kendrick said.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Bixby’s beliefs are odd but not delusional.
Experts for both sides agreed that many of Bixby’s beliefs align with so-called constitutionalists, who believe the Constitution is the only valid law, and sovereign citizens, who denounce the government altogether. Bixby himself hasn’t identified himself as belonging to any particular political group.
A psychiatrist hired by prosecutors said lots of people find patterns in numbers. Take, for example, people with lucky lottery numbers who believe they’ll one day win the jackpot, said Richard Frierson.
If other people have the same line of thinking, Bixby isn’t necessarily irrational, prosecutors said.
“Where do you draw the line as to how many people have to believe something before we consider it mental illness?” Frierson said.
Many of Bixby’s beliefs seem to have come directly from his parents. His mother received a life sentence for planning the ambush. His father, who also shot at officers, was found unfit to stand trial because he had developed dementia. Both died in custody in 2011.
Time alone on death row has allowed Bixby to dig his heels in on the belief system his parents imparted, Frierson said.
After years of homeschooling, Bixby is relatively uneducated, which made him more susceptible to believing conspiracy theories. He listens to radio stations and reads blog posts that affirm his belief system, Frierson said.
Various psychiatrists have diagnosed Bixby with narcissistic personality disorder, a mental condition that causes a person to believe themselves to be the center of the universe. That likely led to Bixby’s beliefs becoming unshakable, since he thinks he’s the smartest person in any room, said Richart DeMier, a psychiatrist Bixby’s defense team hired to evaluate him.
Bixby also has some paranoia that might affect his functioning, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood trauma, which wasn’t specified, and his father getting shot during the standoff, psychiatrists said.
None of the psychiatrists who testified had ever found a person incompetent because of a personality disorder alone. Often, patients deemed incompetent have a condition that affects their memory, such as dementia, or some form of psychosis, which makes them unable to comprehend what’s happening or what will happen if they die, they said.
A personality disorder tends to be a strongly held worldview a person had shaped during a person’s childhood. Bixby has a particularly severe personality disorder, psychiatrists agreed. Rarely are personality disorders so severe that they make a person incompetent, experts said.
Bixby’s personality disorder impaired him enough that he couldn’t face the death chamber, DeMier said. Frierson and Donna Maddox, the court-appointed psychiatrist who evaluated Bixby, disagreed.
Bixby has shown symptoms of psychosis in the past. Once, during a particularly stressful period, he told a psychiatrist he was having visions of billboards that read, “Bixby for sheriff,” and that he caused his attorney’s skin to peel, Maddox said.
During Maddox’s most recent visits with Bixby, including a conversation Friday morning ahead of his hearing, he no longer had those delusions, she said.
He seemed capable of having a rational conversation, even if he didn’t always choose to cooperate with his attorneys, Maddox said.
He understood the facts of his case, that a jury found him guilty, that he will almost certainly die if the judge finds him competent, and why he was in court this week, said assistant attorney general Joseph Maye.
“He understands all of those things, and not only does he understand them, but he understands the law enough to be angry about the fact that they’re being presented, because he disagrees with them,” Maye said.
The roughly eight-hour hearing over two days concluded without Bixby getting his wish of being freed.
Attorneys on both sides will have two weeks to submit proposed orders for Sprouse to consider. Sprouse will have 30 days to make his decision, though either side could appeal, bringing the case back to the Supreme Court.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
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