Prosecutor quits case as effort fails to get 3rd death penalty for Lexington killer

Fifteen years after his first death-penalty conviction and nine years after his second, a third effort to secure the death penalty for Lexington County killer Clinton Robert Northcutt failed Tuesday.

Settling Northcutt’s sentence — for the brutal, fatal beating of his infant daughter — could take another 15 years, a defense attorney said Tuesday.

The long-delayed proceeding to reconsider Northcutt’s second death penalty unexpectedly was halted Tuesday morning at the Lexington County Courthouse when 11th Circuit Solicitor Rick Hubbard, who was prosecuting the case, said he would recuse his office from the case.

Hubbard’s decision to quit the case brought to abrupt halt the proceeding before S.C. Circuit Judge Frank Addy of Greenwood.

That sent Northcutt, 38, back to death row, where he has spent the past 15 years.

“The man’s been found guilty and given the death penalty twice,” said Laura Hudson, executive director of the S.C. Victims Council. “And we’re having to do this again. Justice moves real slowly in South Carolina. But if anybody deserves the death penalty, this man does.” Hudson said her comments were directed at the court system — not at Hubbard.

‘Open season’ on babies in Lexington?

The latest chapter in one of the state’s longer-running death penalty cases leaves Northcutt’s future yet to be determined.

Hudson, who was in the courtroom, said, “I’m very disappointed. The crime victims have been waiting a long time.”

Northcutt first was sentenced to death in 2003, after a jury found him guilty of the murder of his 4-month-old infant daughter, Breanna. Northcutt beat the infant to death because she was crying, according to evidence at that trial. A jury found Northcutt guilty and then, in the trial’s penalty phase, gave him the death penalty.

The S.C. Supreme Court upheld Northcutt’s guilty verdict in 2007.

But it found unconstitutional arguments to the jury that then-prosecutor Donnie Myers had made during the 2003 trial’s penalty phase and ordered a new sentencing.

Myers had produced a black shroud, draped it over a baby’s crib and then staged a funeral procession around the courtroom. Myers also improperly told jurors if they didn’t vote to give Northcutt the death penalty, it would be “open season” on babies in Lexington County.

In 2009, S.C. Circuit Judge James Williams sentenced Northcutt to death again after a second sentencing trial, this one a nonjury proceeding.

However, Northcutt’s lawyers immediately filed a motion to reconsider the death-penalty sentence. That motion asks a judge to review the record of a case and, if appropriate, change the original ruling.

But Judge Williams retired before acting on the defense motion to reconsider Northcutt’s death penalty. That motion remains pending — and stops all appeals — until it is ruled on.

In 2013, the still-pending motion to reconsider Northcutt’s death penalty was given to Judge Addy. But it was not until this week — five years later — that the motion was heard in court. No one contacted by The State could explain that delay.

‘An abundance of caution’

In preparing for the case, Hubbard’s office reached out to former Judge Williams to see if he could testify during this week’s proceedings. However, Northcutt’s defense team Tuesday objected to Hubbard’s office’s contacting Williams, saying contacting the former judge as a potential witness was improper.

Addy ruled the contact was not disqualifying for the prosecutor.

However, once the defense team raised the issue of impropriety, Hubbard told Addy that he would recuse his office from the case, “out of an abundance of caution.”

The case now will be turned over to the S.C. attorney general’s office for prosecution or for assignment to another solicitor’s office.

Hubbard, who was going to try the case with assistant prosecutor Suzanne Mayes, declined to comment Tuesday.

Defense attorney Bill McGuire of the S.C. Commission on Indigent Defense, would only say, “This case, like many other capital cases, has a number of complicated legal issues in it. Because of this history, it could be litigated another 15 or 17 years.”

McGuire’s co-counsel include Lindsey Vann and Elizabeth Franklin-Best.

This story was originally published July 24, 2018 at 5:23 PM.