GREENVILLE, S.C. — A judge has ordered a new sentencing hearing for a man on South Carolina’s death row for strangling a Clemson University student with her bikini top 14 years ago.
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The Tennessee man behind the killing, Jerry Buck Inman, was a registered sex offender, a serial rapist, and a self-proclaimed “animal” whom a prosecutor called “the worst of the worst,” according to local news outlets.
The Greenville News reports a lower court judge ruled that Inman should have been sentenced by a jury instead of by a judge when the death sentence for killing and raping 20-year-old Tiffany Souers was handed down in 2009.
The state Attorney General’s Office can appeal the decision to the South Carolina Supreme Court.
If a jury sentences Inman again, they will decide between death and life without parole.
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