S.C. man executed for killing guard

Columbia, S.C. | A man who killed an armored car guard 10 years ago was executed Friday night by lethal injection.

Calvin Alphonso Shuler, 40, was declared dead at 6:17 p.m. He made no final statement.

Shuler was armed with a handgun and assault rifle when he ordered two guards out of an armored van that was stopped outside a Harleyville bank in 1997.

Shuler, a former co-worker of the guards, exchanged gunfire with the men before driving off in the van with James "J.B." Brooks, the third guard who was locked in the back.

Brooks, 77, and Shuler also exchanged gunfire. Shuler was wounded in the neck before he got into another vehicle and fled.

Authorities later found Brooks' body in the van, which was abandoned along a dirt road several miles from the bank.

Just after 6 p.m., prison officials pulled back a burgundy curtain, revealing the glass-encased death chamber to the 10 witnesses. Shuler, clad in a bright green jumpsuit, had already been strapped to a gurney, tubing connecting one of his outstretched arms to the lethal chemicals kept behind a brick wall.

Shuler turned his head toward the glass, locking eyes with a man Corrections Department officials identify only as Shuler's spiritual adviser.

Shuler never moved his gaze from the man, seated in the second row of the small brick witness room behind three members of Brooks' family. The adviser began nodding his head, saying "Amen, amen, my brother," to Shuler, then hummed softly as the execution was carried out.

About two minutes after the chemicals began flowing into his veins, Shuler took several audible breaths through his mouth before becoming

still.

His eyelids slid to halfway closed and his chest stopped moving up and down.

A doctor entered the room several minutes later, using a stethoscope to check for a heartbeat before nodding to Corrections officials, who said at 6:17 p.m. that Shuler had been executed.

Corrections Department

officials said earlier Friday that Shuler was served a last meal of a T-bone steak, well done with A-1 steak sauce, baked potato, french fries, grape drink and chocolate cake.

He met with the spiritual adviser throughout the day Friday. His attorney Francis Cornely also was on Shuler's witness list, but no family members.

Three members of the Brooks' family watched Shuler die.

They were not identified by prison officials and chose not to speak with reporters.

Three members of the media and two law enforcement representatives also witnessed the execution.

Shuler's request for clemency was denied by Gov. Mark Sanford on Friday.

Shuler's attorneys argued to the South Carolina Supreme Court that lethal injection was cruel and unusual punishment, but the high court on Wednesday rejected the request to stop the execution, according to Lisa Kimbrough, a Columbia attorney who has worked on Shuler's case.

It was South Carolina's first execution of 2007 and the 37th since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977.