South Carolina’s Supreme Court has approved a new raft of execution methods. Capital punishment sentences can now be carried out by electrocution or firing squad after the Court ruled that the risk of botching an execution does not render it unconstitutional on unusual cruelty grounds. Justice John Few said it is an unescapable reality that all execution methods risk going wrong, but that does not justify prohibiting them. The state Congress made the changes in a 2021 bill, but this was not enforced due to prisoner legal challenges.
Palmetto State Governor Henry McMaster praised the ruling and said the Court had “rightfully upheld the rule of law.” He added that it is fitting that the families of murder victims get justice for their loved ones and receive the “closure” they had waited for.
The ruling means that condemned prisoners can now choose between execution methods and decide to die either by firing squad, the electric chair, or lethal injection. Since South Carolina reintroduced the death penalty in 1976, it has executed 43 prisoners, most of whom died by lethal injection. Last year, the legislature passed related legislation that shielded the identity of companies that supply the chemicals used in injection executions and altered the drug content from three to one.
The last time a prisoner was executed in South Carolina was in 2011. Jeffrey Motts died by lethal injection at the Brood River Correctional Institute after being convicted for the murder of an elderly couple and, later, his cellmate. There are currently 32 people awaiting execution on death row in the Palmetto State, but it is unclear when these will be carried out.
There were some dissenters from the Supreme Court decision, with two ruling that the methods were cruel, unusual, and therefore unlawful. Justice John Kittredge said he believes firing squad is unusual and thus cruel. Chief Justice Don Beatty agreed and stated that the firing squad leaves behind a bloody scene, and there is no guarantee that shooters will directly strike the heart. Similarly, Beatty believes electrocution is cruel and said condemned prisoners are “engulfed in flames, suffering extensive burns, and bleeding prior to death.”
Justice Beatty compared the electric chair to burning at the stake, arguing it was a modernized version of the medieval punishment. The only difference, he said, was that an electrical current had replaced the match.
Execution by electrocution is legal in just six states but is permitted in others as a backup in case lethal injection is ever ruled unconstitutional. The states that execute prisoners using this method are Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee. In 2008, the Supreme Court of Nebraska ruled that electric chair executions did qualify as cruel and unusual and, therefore, in conflict with the state constitution.
Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah allow death by firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner was the last American prisoner executed using this method in 2010 in Utah. Prisoners who meet this fate are strapped to a chair surrounded by sandbags, and a target is placed over the heart. The firing squad is drawn from a list of prison staff volunteers, and five participate in each execution.
