South Carolina death row inmate invokes ‘sovereign citizen’ defense in bid to avoid execution

Attorneys for a South Carolina death row inmate whose execution is imminent are making a last-ditch argument that their client is incompetent to be executed partly because of his belief that he is a sovereign citizen.

Steven Bixby and his father, Arthur Bixby, led a 12-hour gun battle with law enforcement in Abbeville, South Carolina, on Dec. 8, 2003, that resulted in the deaths of two police officers. 

The standoff, during which thousands of rounds of ammunition were exchanged between the Bixbys and police, stemmed from an attempt by the South Carolina Department of Transportation to widen a highway by using an easement on Bixby property. The Bixbys claimed that the easement was fabricated, or in any case irrelevant. 

The family, including Bixby’s mother Rita, was well known for their sovereign citizen beliefs. 

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The FBI labels sovereign citizens as extremists and characterizes them as people who believe they are sovereign from the United States government and thus do not have to answer to government authorities, including law enforcement, courts, taxing entities and others. At best, they are a loosely affiliated group who hold similar beliefs, but most sovereign citizens act on their own without any central organization guiding them. 

They are also known for filing lawsuits against government authorities, a trait embodied by Rita Bixby, who filed unsuccessful lawsuits against state entities. 

After the standoff, Steven Bixby was charged with two counts of murder and one count of criminal conspiracy, and sentenced to death in February 2007. Arthur and Rita Bixby were charged in the attack too, and both were sentenced to life in prison.

After exhausting his appeals by 2010, Bixby’s days were numbered. However, the state faced a shortage of lethal injection drugs, and indefinitely paused all executions. A 2021 state law allowed death sentences to resume via firing squad or electrocution. After years of litigation, the state executed its first death row inmate in 13 years, opening the door for Bixby’s execution. 

Bixby was set to be executed last May, until a judge postponed his execution date to determine if he is mentally competent. 

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Now, his attorneys say he cannot be executed because he doesn’t meet the state’s two-pronged test to declare competency for execution. 

The first prong echoes that of the U.S. Supreme Court’s only competency test: whether a person understands that they are going to be executed, and why. 

The South Carolina Supreme Court has a second prong, established in the 1993 case Singleton v. State: whether a person is able to rationally communicate with their counsel. Bixby’s lawyers are arguing that because of his ardent belief in sovereign citizenship and because of his undying admiration and loyalty to his parents, he was genuinely unable to understand that he faced the death penalty and that he could not communicate rationally with his lawyers. 

Michael Meltsner, professor emeritus of law at Northeastern University, provided commentary on the 2021 Darrell Brooks case, and spoke with Fox News Digital about Bixby’s case. Brooks claimed to be a sovereign citizen and represented himself in court after mowing down innocent people and killing six at a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He was sentenced to six life terms plus 700 years in prison for his crimes. 

“Well, first of all, just because you have a crazy belief, it does not serve as a defense to either a crime or an execution under the prevailing Supreme Court standard,” Meltsner said. “The only way that could be relevant to what the hearing would be about is if it was relevant to the legal standard for insanity or the legal standard for having such a serious mental condition that you can’t be executed.”

But Meltsner said the South Carolina Supreme Court can have broader standards for execution than the standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

“Of course, South Carolina could decide that the state can have a ‘higher’ or ‘better’ standard than the constitutional one,” he said. “The South Carolina courts could decide, well, he can’t communicate with his lawyer and so we’re not going to execute him.”

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As for whether Bixby’s sovereign citizenship makes him insane, and whether that argument will hold up in court, Meltsner doesn’t know. 

“Well, it’s a factual matter,” he said. “It could be a terrible disability, and this guy sounds fairly crazy. It also could be at the other end of the continuum. It could be malicious and manipulative. But as a general matter, you can argue any damn thing you want in court. It’s up to the courts to decide what it means.”

Bixby still maintains that he was acting in self-defense and defense of his property.

Fox News Digital reached out to Bixby’s attorneys. 

The Bixby standoff

The Bixbys were longtime sovereign citizens stemming from their days living in New Hampshire, where Rita was a perpetual litigant against the state and where Arthur was arrested for ignoring a court’s order to pay $850 for more than three years after a judgment against him. 

Steven Bixby left New Hampshire for South Carolina in the 1990s after a warrant for his arrest was issued for driving drunk without a license and skipping meetings with his parole officers. His mother and father followed shortly thereafter, due to a threat of foreclosure on their home for not paying taxes. 

The South Carolina land dispute began in the early 2000s, when the state notified the Bixbys that their property had an easement, deeded by a previous owner of the land to the state, allowing the state to use 20 feet on the edge of the property to widen Highway 72 adjacent to the property if the state so chose. 

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In 2003, the state was beginning the widening process and land surveyors were making markings on the property to begin the job, causing tension between state authorities and the Bixbys. 

On the morning of Dec. 8, 2003, a surveyor called the police on Steven and Arthur Bixby for threatening him.

Abbeville County sheriff’s Sgt. Danny Wilson responded to the call and was immediately shot by Bixby. He was dragged inside the Bixby home, shackled with his own handcuffs, and died sometime during the 14-hour standoff that ensued. 

State constable Donnie Ouzts responded after communications from Wilson ceased. He, too, was immediately shot and killed by Bixby on the front lawn of the property. 

After a 14-hour gunfight with SWAT teams and law enforcement from around the state, Steven and Arthur Bixby were finally arrested.