In Columbia, at the Capital Punishment Facility at...

In Columbia, at the Capital Punishment Facility at Broad River Correctional Institution, David Clayton Hill died by lethal injection. The official time of death was 6:14 p.m. Hill, 39, was convicted of killing Police Maj. Spencer Guerry, in March 1994. The execution ended a 2 week legal drama where Hill's lawyers argued lethal execution was an unusually cruel and painful punishment because South Carolina doesn't sedate its inmates enough to knock them unconscious before administering chemicals to paralyze muscles, stop breathing and stop the heart. For two weeks, Hill's execution was off after a federal judge granted him a stay. But the state appealed and four hours before he went into the death chamber, the U.S. Supreme Court sealed his fate. Hill becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in South Carolina and the 18th in the USA.