Date Published: June 1, 2006   

State Supreme Court clears way for execution

The Associated Press

The state Supreme Court has decided a 38-year-old death row inmate who kidnapped, raped and murdered a 6-year-old boy is mentally competent to waive his rights and be executed.

Unless William "Junior" Downs decides in the next two weeks to appeal the court's ruling, the justices will issue a death warrant and set an execution date.

Downs has asked to die since he pleaded guilty in June 2002. "I think it would be disrespectful to the family and disrespectful to the whole world if you did not give me the death penalty," Downs told Circuit Judge Casey Manning, who sentenced him to death.

The body of Keenan O'Mailia of North Augusta was found in April 1999 covered with debris. The boy disappeared the evening before, when he was riding his bicycle along a dirt path near his home.

Downs said he stopped the boy along the path, asking him his name before throwing him to the ground and strangling him.

In March, Downs' lawyer Robert Dudek said Downs told him he would rather die since the best he could get out of an appeal would be a life sentence without parole.