Rock Hill man convicted of 2001 rape, murder of daughter seeks new trial

Billy Wayne Cope, convicted of the rape and murder of his 12-year-old daughter in 2001, is demanding a new trial after filing a lawsuit claiming the lawyers who fought for him for more than a decade did not do enough.

Court records show Cope – who had four lawyers for his 2004 trial – now has six new lawyers to make a last-ditch effort at a new trial that might be his only hope of getting out of prison.

Sixteenth Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett and other prosecutors have said repeatedly that Cope received a fair trial and the evidence showed Cope – who confessed several times to raping and choking his daughter, Amanda, in a “brutal” crime – is guilty.

The claim is no surprise after Cope’s lawyers stated last year he would continue trying to prove his innocence and get a new trial. It comes nine months after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Cope’s claim he was wrongfully convicted.

Cope, 51, alleges his lawyers – including David Bruck, who defended convicted child-killer Susan Smith in nearby Union County in 1994 and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – made errors that kept Cope from getting his convictions overturned.

He claims two of his trial lawyers, including lead attorney Jim Morton of Rock Hill, provided ineffective counsel. Morton declined to comment.

Post-conviction relief lawsuits alleging that defense lawyers botched cases are filed routinely by defendants convicted of crimes, but rarely are successful. Experts say it would be difficult for Cope to win after so much effort was put into his case – both at trial and on appeal – and since he had such high-profile lawyers with top reputations.

The lawsuit, however, “might be the last alternative for Mr. Cope,” said Kenneth Gaines, a criminal law professor at the University of South Carolina.

The case has gained attention from network TV news and experts on wrongful convictions, since the only DNA found at the scene was that of ex-con James Edward Sanders, convicted with Cope at trial. After a 2010 “Dateline” special on NBC questioned Cope’s conviction, Brackett set up billywaynecope.com, a website where he lays out why Cope was convicted.

Cope confessed several times after initially denying involvement. He and his lawyers claimed the confessions were false and coerced by overzealous police before DNA testing pointed at Sanders. Cope was charged days after the rape and murder; Sanders was not arrested until months later.

Cope claims in the new civil lawsuit that his lawyers erred by failing to:

▪ Bring up at trial that Sanders had been out of prison only six weeks when Amanda was killed. Cope now says that would “undermine the state’s theory that Cope and Sanders knew each other so well that Cope was willing to offer his daughter to Sanders for his perverse sexual pleasures and then murder.”

▪ Object to prosecutors’ opening arguments, during which they said Cope was as guilty as Sanders, despite the DNA evidence pointing only to Sanders.

▪ Argue more to get Sanders’ arrests for sexual assault and burglary around the same time as Amanda’s murder admitted at trial.

Efforts to reach Cope’s current attorneys were unsuccessful Monday. A spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office, which will represent the state in the civil lawsuit, declined comment.

This story was originally published July 20, 2015 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Rock Hill man convicted of 2001 rape, murder of daughter seeks new trial."