Man sentenced to die tomorrow

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - An attorney for death row inmate James

Earl Reed says his client made a fatal mistake in choosing to

represent himself at trial.

Attorney Joe Savitz says Reed likely would not be facing the

electric chair on Friday had he not fired his attorney and

represented himself at trial. Reed has made similar arguments in

court appeals, but the state Supreme Court ruled he had been warned

about the dangers of being his own lawyer.

Reed is scheduled Friday to become the first man put to death in

South Carolina's electric chair in more than four years.

He has been on death row since 1996, when he was convicted of

killing his ex-girlfriends' parents, Joseph and Barbara Lafayette,

in their Charleston County home two years earlier. Prosecutors said

he was looking for his ex-girlfriend at the time.