Executions in South Carolina have been halted until the state can offer a firing squad as a choice for death row inmates.
But in a state like South Carolina, which has never offered the firing squad as an official method of execution, its unclear what such an execution would look like.
South Carolina will be one of only four state to offer the firing squad to inmates on death row. It’s joined by Utah, Mississippi and Oklahoma, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Proponents of the firing squad say it is more humane and less error-prone than the electric chair.
From 1890 to 2010, 84 executions in the electric chair were botched, while zero executions by firing squad failed, according to data in the 2014 book “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty” by Amherst College professor Austin Sarat.
But even in other states that have had a firing squad for years, how the execution would be carried out isn’t exactly clear.
Utah is the only state to have carried out an execution by firing squad since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Utah carried out its first firing squad execution the next year, executing Gary Gilmore in January 1977 and executed John Albert Taylor in January 1996.
In Oklahoma, the firing squad is the last resort method of execution. Under state law, it is to be used if nitrogen hypoxia, the lethal injection, and electrocution are all found to be unconstitutional. Mississippi’s execution law has an identical clause.
What are other states doing?
While three other states offer the firing squad as a method of execution, an inmate selecting to die that way is exceedingly rare.
Utah voted to bring back the firing squad in 2015 for similar reasons as South Carolina: The state couldn’t obtain the necessary drugs to administer a lethal injection.
Prior to that, the state’s last firing squad execution was in 2010, when convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner was put to death.
Gardner was strapped to the execution chair and a black hood was slipped over his head, according to media reports. A target was attached to his shirt over the location of his heart.
The chair is situated amid sandbags so the bullets don’t ricochet.
Five anonymous marksmen with .30-caliber rifles stood 25 feet away behind a wall with a gun port. The shooters are volunteers from the Department of Corrections or law enforcement. One of the shooters was given a rifle with a blank round so no one would know who fired the shot to kill Gardner.
Gardner was then shot in the heart and the lungs by the group of executioners.
During debate over the execution bill, South Carolina lawmakers often described their vision of how an execution by firing squad would be carried out. Their descriptions mirrored the process used by Utah.
S.C. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said the department is still working on developing procedures to carry out an execution by firing squad. That work can be complicated, Shain said, because “creating a new method of execution is multi-faceted and demands deliberate and intentional work to ensure the policies, procedures and infrastructure are proper.”
There are several challenges Corrections officials will have to consider. For example, will the department need to construct a new facility where it’s safe to carry out an execution by firing squad? Shain said department officials currently don’t believe they will, but “we are assessing that now as part of the planning process.”
Some details are already clear, though: Shain said the team carrying out executions by firing squad will consist of a volunteer group of Department of Corrections employees.
Corrections currently does not have a timeline for when they may be able to start offering the firing squad as a method of execution, Shain said.
Why is SC offering the firing squad?
The Palmetto State established the firing squad as one of its methods of execution in May as lawmakers scrambled for a way to resume executions. Capitol punishment had ground to a halt in the state after drug companies refused to sell the drugs necessary for the lethal injection to prison bureaus across the country.
For South Carolina, which at the time had lethal injection as the default method of execution, that meant executions could no longer be carried out. While the state’s electric chair was still legal and in working order, under old state law, they could not force an inmate to be executed in the electric chair unless they specifically chose to do so.
So in May, lawmakers passed a bill that made the electric chair the default method of execution so they could resume carrying out executions after a nearly 10-year hiatus.
During debate over the bill, S.C. Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, championed an amendment to add the firing squad as a method of execution. Harpootlian, a former solicitor who tried several death penalty cases, maintained that method was far more humane than the electric chair, which he called a “horrible, horrible thing to do to another human being.”
“They’re dead instantly,” Harpootlian said of the firing squad on the Senate floor during debate over the bill. “The actual pain and suffering of death, it’s actually the least painful and the least suffering of any manner of death.”
The amendment was ultimately added to the bill and remained there when the bill was signed into law. That meant that under the new state law, inmates would be offered the option of death by electric chair, firing squad or lethal injection, but could only choose from methods that were available.
Shortly after the bill became law, the clerk of the state Supreme Court began issuing execution notices. In late May, the court scheduled inmate Brad Sigmon’s execution for June 18, and in early June, it scheduled inmate Freddie Owens’ for June 25.
At the time, the state could only offer the electric chair as a method of execution, S.C. Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling wrote in a letter to the state Supreme Court on May 21. Corrections was still working to create the proper procedures and policies for carrying out an execution by firing squad.
Attorneys for Sigmon and Owens quickly filed stays of execution. When Sigmon was given a form to chose the method he wanted to die by two weeks before his scheduled execution, Sigmon wrote by hand “I elect lethal injection” on the form that stated that electrocution was the only available method of execution. Owens did the same.
The court didn’t act until Wednesday, just two days before Sigmon was scheduled to die. In a late afternoon order, the justices vacated both Owens and Sigmon’s execution notices and ordered the clerk of the court not to reissue one until Corrections could offer the firing squad as an alternate method of execution. In their decision, the justices wrote that the inmates had a statutory right to elect their manner of execution.
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Corrections spokeswoman Shain said the department was still working to develop firing squad procedures, adding that it was looking to other states for guidance.
“We will notify the court when a firing squad becomes an option for executions,” she said.
