COLUMBIA --- A man condemned to die for killing his ex-girlfriend should have received a life sentence after jurors revealed they were split on the death penalty, the man's attorney argued before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.

After jurors deliberating over Charles Christopher Williams' sentence revealed they were split 9-3 in favor of execution, a trial judge's instruction that they continue their discussion was intended to coerce the three holdouts to change their minds, attorney Robert Dudek argued.

"The only thing for the court to have done was to have imposed a life sentence without parole," Mr. Dudek said.

Chief Justice Jean Toal told Mr. Dudek that she didn't see a jury that had deliberated only 51/2 hours as deadlocked or unable to reach a decision with further debate.

"I don't know of any case where we view that short a period of time unreasonable," Judge Toal said.

During the trial, jurors were shown a slow-motion video of a man chasing 24-year-old Maranda Williams through the Simpsonville Bi-Lo grocery store where she worked, a sawed-off shotgun at his shoulder. Authorities said Mr. Williams had held the woman hostage at gunpoint for nearly two hours in 2003 before shooting her three times in the back.

Though justices seemed skeptical about Mr. Dudek's claim that the judge should have ordered a life sentence, they appeared to agree that a state psychiatrist who interviewed Mr. Williams to recommend whether prosecutors should seek the death penalty should not have also been allowed to testify during the penalty phase.