COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A judge in South Carolina has ruled a death row inmate's beliefs that most laws are unconstitutional and citizens have an absolute right to defend their property to the death are not proof he is mentally incompetent and should be executed.

The ruling clears the way for now for Steven Bixby to be put to death for the 2003 killings of two police officers who came to his family's Abbeville home to discuss a dispute between them and a construction crew that had come to widen the road. Bixby’s lawyers can ask to appeal the ruling.

The state Supreme Court had stopped Bixby's execution weeks before it could be scheduled and asked a lower court to decide if his beliefs about the legal system kept him from helping his lawyers as they appeal his death sentence.

Judge R. Scot

See Full Page