Court won’t revive death sentence for South Carolina inmate

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected a plea from South Carolina to reimpose the death penalty on a South Carolina inmate whose death sentence stood for two decades until a federal appeals court threw it out in August. Chief Justice John Roberts did not comment Friday in denying the state’s request. The order requires the state to conduct a new sentencing hearing for inmate Sammie Stokes, if it wants jurors to sentence him again to death. Otherwise, Stokes will spend the rest of his life in prison. He was sentenced to death in 1999 for the rape and murder of 21-year-old Connie Snipes in Orangeburg County.