The Associated Press
CONWAY, S.C. (AP) - For the second time, a man convicted of killing an Horry County police officer has been sentenced to death.
It took a jury took less than two hours on Saturday to recommend a death sentence for James Nathaniel Bryant III. Circuit Court Judge Paula Thomas added 20 years for armed robbery to Bryant’s sentence.
A separate jury convicted Bryant on both charges in 2001, but the state Supreme Court reversed that conviction after ruling Bryant was denied a fair trial and returned the case to Horry County.
Thomas said Bryant would be returned immediately to death row at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville. He had been held in Georgetown County Detention Center since the reversal of his first conviction.
“Praise the lord,” Bryant said after the verdict.
He had told jurors before their decision that he was a changed man and doing God’s work in prison.
“I pray that the victim’s family will be comforted,” he said.
Cpl. Dennis Lyden was the first Horry County police officer killed on duty. He was beaten severely then shot once in the head after making a traffic stop June 5, 2000, on state Highway 544.
Lyden’s widow, Maryann Lyden, did not want to talk about the verdict.
“Nobody is happy about anything that happened,” said Lyden’s brother, Patrick Lyden.
The nearly two-week trial led to a verdict Horry County police Chief Johnny Morgan said shows “our justice system really works.”
Bryant didn’t take the witness stand, which would have subjected him to cross-examination by the prosecutor.
Instead, he spoke directly to jurors and offered apologies to the Lyden family and his own.
Taking responsibility for the crime, he said, “On June 5, 2000, I was a man in rebellion against everything, even our creator,” he said. “But today I’m with God. I know peace. God wants me to go forth, even in an earthly place of punishment.”
Prosecutor Walter Bailey punctuated his closing arguments with two of the photos - one of Lyden before the beating and the other of his bloodied face and head at the crime scene.
Robert Johnston, one of Bryant’s defense attorneys, asked the jury to consider changes in Bryant’s life since the crime, the love he shares with his family and his behavior in prison, and choose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“He will go to prison and die,” Johnston said.
Johnston said Bryant’s conviction would be appealed.