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Rep. Nancy Mace (X)

She Wants the Death Penalty for Women No Court Has Found Guilty: Nancy Mace Weighs In, Again, on a South Carolina Case She Has No Role In

On October 1, 2026, Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X that she is 'praying for the firing squad' for a South Carolina mother charged in the deaths of her two young daughters: 'You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it.' The woman, Justine Marie May of Ladson, Charleston County, is charged, not convicted, has not been tried, and is presumed innocent. It was the second South Carolina child-death case in two days on which Mace publicly prejudged the defendant, after her September 30 House statement on a Spartanburg case ('This is not mental. This is criminal.') and one day after Lindsay Clancy's defense lawyer named her in a Massachusetts courtroom. Mace holds no charging, prosecuting, judging, or sentencing role in any of the three. Nothing here is a finding about any defendant's guilt or mental state, and nothing here assigns Mace a motive. The words are hers, in order. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Screenshot of Rep. Nancy Mace's October 1, 2026 post on X: 'If you can please PRAY for these babies while I pray for the firing squad. We have that here. You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it.'
Screenshot of Rep. Nancy Mace's October 1, 2026 post on X: 'If you can please PRAY for these babies while I pray for the firing squad. We have that here. You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it.'

"You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it."

That is Rep. Nancy Mace, in her own name, on X at 5:00 AM on October 1, 2026, about a South Carolina mother who has been charged, not convicted, and who has not been tried. She is calling for a firing squad. She holds no role in the case: she does not investigate it, prosecute it, try it, or sentence it. It is the second South Carolina criminal case in two days in which Mace, a member of Congress, has publicly prejudged the defendant, and it follows the Lindsay Clancy case in Massachusetts, where a defense lawyer named her in open court on September 29 for calling for that defendant's public execution.

This dispatch is a record of what she said and when. Every quotation is her own dated, public statement or a plain fact attributed to the outlet or official that reported it. Every defendant named here is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. We reach no conclusion about anyone's guilt or mental state, and we assign Mace no motive. Her words are here so you can read them yourself.

The October 1 post

On the morning of October 1, 2026, Mace posted again about a South Carolina child-death case, this time a different one. Her post, at 5:00 AM, quoted a post by Matt Van Swol about a Charleston County mother. This is Mace's post, verbatim:

"If you can please PRAY for these babies while I pray for the firing squad. We have that here. You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it."

Screenshot of Rep. Nancy Mace's October 1, 2026 post on X reading 'If you can please PRAY for these babies while I pray for the firing squad. We have that here. You kill your kids, the state should kill you. It's called the death penalty, this woman has earned it.' quoting a post by Matt Van Swol about a South Carolina case

Her post on X, October 1, 2026, 5:00 AM. Cropped to her text and the quoted post's text; the quoted post's photos of the children are not reproduced here. See the original.

The case she is reacting to is separate from Spartanburg. According to Newsweek, which attributes the facts to the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, Justine Marie May, 31, is charged in the deaths of her two young daughters, who were found on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Newsweek, citing WXIA's reporting, says family members said they spent weeks seeking help through the state Department of Social Services, welfare checks, and mobile crisis units beforehand. The quoted post, and Newsweek, both note a Lindsay Clancy comparison. May is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. Newsweek reports she waived her bond hearing.

The same move, for the third time in three days, and the point is the same each time: none of these is hers. The Spartanburg case is in the Upstate, roughly 200 miles from her coastal district. The Clancy case is in Massachusetts. The May case is in Ladson, in Charleston County, where the sheriff's office responded and the local prosecutors will decide the charges. (Ladson's ZIP code, 29456, is split by the House's own district lookup between Mace's 1st District and James Clyburn's 6th, and no public report we found gives the home's exact address, so we make no claim about which district it sits in. Her role in the case is the same either way: none.) In every one, Mace is not the prosecutor, the judge, the sheriff, or a legislator with a bill before anyone. She is a member of Congress commenting, in her own name, on someone else's pending criminal case. On September 29 a defense lawyer named her in a Massachusetts courtroom for it. On September 30 she declared a Spartanburg case "not mental." On October 1 she wrote that the state "should kill" a woman a court has not yet tried. We assign her no motive and reach no verdict on any defendant; the words are hers, and the dates are on the record.

The day before: "This is not mental. This is criminal."

That is Rep. Nancy Mace, in her own name, on official House letterhead, in a statement her office released on September 30, 2026 about a Spartanburg County, South Carolina criminal case. She holds no role in that case. She does not prosecute it, she will not try it, and she will not sentence it. It is a state prosecution, in the Upstate, roughly 200 miles from the coastal district she represents.

This dispatch is a record of what she said and when. Every quotation below is her own dated, public statement or a plain fact attributed to the outlet or official that reported it. We reach no conclusion about the defendant's guilt or her mental state, both of which are questions for a court that has not yet tried the case, and we assign Mace no motive. Her words are here so you can read them yourself.

What she said

Under the headline "Congresswoman Nancy Mace Weighs In On Horrific South Carolina Child Stabbing," Mace's House office published the following statement in full:

"Two young children are fighting for their lives because the one person meant to protect them became their greatest threat. We're sick of seeing this headline. Sick of hearing the excuses. There is NO excuse for this. In South Carolina, we protect our children. Anyone who harms them should never walk free again. This is not mental. This is criminal. And it's time our justice system sends a clear message. We're praying for these two babies and their full recovery."

That is the entire statement, reproduced word for word from her own press release. FOX Carolina (reporter Anisa Snipes) carried it the same day.

The case, stated neutrally

A Spartanburg County woman, Taylor Gosnell, 35, is charged with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime. She was denied bond. She has not entered a plea, has not been tried, and is presumed innocent. The charges are allegations that the state must prove.

The two children are a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old. According to the 7th Circuit Solicitor's Office, reported by FOX Carolina, the 6-year-old suffered severe arm trauma that could require amputation. The Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, as reported by WSPA and the Post and Courier, alleges the children were stabbed more than 50 times, some wounds piercing bone, at a Bud Arthur Bridge Road residence on the night of September 25 into September 26, 2026. Both children remain hospitalized in protective custody and are expected to recover. We do not name the children; they are minors.

One fact from the record sits directly under Mace's statement. The Post and Courier reported that Gosnell underwent a mental-health evaluation at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center before she was taken into custody. Whether mental state bears on criminal responsibility is a question South Carolina courts decide through competency and defense procedures. It is, on this record, a live question. It is the exact question Mace's statement declares already answered: "This is not mental. This is criminal."

This is a South Carolina state criminal case, prosecuted by the 7th Circuit Solicitor's Office. It is unrelated to any other litigation.

The pattern: this is the Clancy move, one day later

Mace's Spartanburg statement did not come out of nowhere. Look at her own office's press-release feed:

  • September 29, 2026: "Rep. Nancy Mace Calls Out Lindsay Clancy's Defense Attorney After He Names Her in Court."
  • September 30, 2026: "Congresswoman Nancy Mace Weighs In On Horrific South Carolina Child Stabbing."

Back to back. One day apart. And the two cases rhyme.

In the Lindsay Clancy case, a Massachusetts murder prosecution in which Mace also holds no role, Clancy's defense is postpartum psychosis, that she was not criminally responsible. Mace called, publicly and repeatedly, for Clancy to be publicly executed, including on official letterhead. On September 29, 2026, Clancy's defense attorney Kevin Reddington stood in Plymouth Superior Court and named Mace from the well of the court, placing her "from Donald Trump on down to Nancy Mace, down to Cruz... the politician calling for her execution," and told reporters that Mace "does not know this case, has never seen the evidence." We covered both moments in full: Named in Open Court and the timeline in her own words.

The next morning, Mace applied the same template to a South Carolina mother. In a case where the record already shows a mental-health evaluation, before an arraignment, before a plea, before a defense has been filed, she declared in her official capacity that the case is "not mental," that it is "criminal," and that whoever harmed the children "should never walk free again."

Watch: the death penalty, for women no court has found guilty

In the Clancy case, Mace said it to a camera. Her TMZ comments on Lindsay Clancy are set here against her September 30 Spartanburg statement and her October 1 post, in her own words.

Her Clancy remarks are real footage from TMZ; the Spartanburg statement is her own House press release; the final frame is her own post on X. Lindsay Clancy, Taylor Gosnell, and Justine May are each charged, not convicted, and are presumed innocent.

Why this is problematic, for the case and for her

We do not have to speculate about whether a politician's public prejudgment can become a problem in a criminal case. It happened to Mace one day earlier, on the record, when a defense lawyer cited her by name in open court as part of the climate around his client's trial.

Set the two things her statement does against the posture of the case:

  • "Anyone who harms them should never walk free again" presupposes the very thing a trial exists to determine. Gosnell has not been convicted of harming anyone; that is what the state has to prove.
  • "This is not mental. This is criminal" announces a verdict on criminal responsibility, the precise issue a mental-health evaluation and any competency or insanity procedure would put before the court. A member of Congress does not decide it. A South Carolina jury and judge do.

Charging, trying, and sentencing Taylor Gosnell are the job of the 7th Circuit Solicitor's Office and the state court. They are not the job of a federal legislator, and this case is not even in her district. When an elected official with a national platform publicly prejudges a pending prosecution and forecloses a defense that has not yet been raised, that is the kind of statement defense lawyers point to, exactly as one did to Mace the day before. That is the risk she is running, again.

There is one more contrast worth noting, in plain factual terms. Mace has built much of her public profile on her own account of trauma, and has spoken publicly about mental health. A flat, official-capacity verdict that someone else's pending case is "not mental" is a notable stance from that same public figure. We draw no diagnosis and no conclusion from it; we note it, and leave it to readers.

Why this is on Maceopedia

A member of Congress inserted herself, on official letterhead, into a South Carolina criminal case she has no role in, prejudged the defendant's guilt, and declared a mental-health question closed that a court has not reached, one day after a defense lawyer in a different case named her in open court for doing the same thing. Maceopedia's job is to keep the record of what she said and when. Every quotation above is her own dated, public statement, shown in order and attributed to her. Taylor Gosnell is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent. We assign Mace no motive and reach no verdict on the case. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Sources & related coverage

Statement quoted verbatim from Rep. Mace's own House office press release, a public record. Case facts attributed to the outlets and officials named above. Quotes are attributed to the people who said them. Taylor Gosnell is charged, not convicted, and is presumed innocent.

She Wants the Death Penalty for Women No Court Has Found Guilty: Nancy Mace Weighs In, Again, on a South Carolina Case She Has No Role In: image 1