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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction Monday of a teenager who claimed antidepressants led him to kill his grandparents and set their house on fire when he was 12 years old.
The court ruled against several arguments made by Christopher Pittman's attorneys, including the contention that he was denied a speedy trial before he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February 2005. He was 15 at the time of his sentencing.
Three years earlier, he had shot his grandparents, Joe and Joy Pittman, with a pump-action shotgun as they slept, then set fire to their home in Chester County.
His attorneys argued unsuccessfully that he had been involuntarily intoxicated by the antidepressant Zoloft at the time of the shooting and didn't know right from wrong. In appealing, his attorneys said the trial judge should have used a different standard for jurors to determine involuntary intoxication.
Paul Waldner, one of Pittman's attorneys, said an appeal was possible. | 
