South Carolina Death Row Inmate Chooses to Be Executed by a Firing Squad

A South Carolina man on death row has chosen death by firing squad as his method of execution, his lawyer said on Friday. If his execution is carried out, he will be the first person killed in that manner in the state’s history.

The man, Brad Sigmon, 67, who was convicted in the 2001 murder of his former girlfriend’s parents in Taylors, S.C., is set to be executed on March 7. Mr. Sigmon — who was ordered to select his method of execution and had to choose between electrocution, lethal injection or firing squad — chose to be fatally shot because of concerns about South Carolina’s lethal injection process, his lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, told The New York Times.

The State Supreme Court ruled last year that death by firing squad was a legal form of punishment even though it is largely viewed as an archaic form of justice that, according to polls, many Americans believe to be inhumane. The Republican-controlled court said that death by firing squad could not be considered cruel or unusual because prisoners had the option to choose from two other methods.

That decision came after South Carolina passed a law in 2021 that made death by electric chair or firing squad legal options for people on death row. The bill, which made electrocution the default method of execution, was proposed because South Carolina could not procure the drugs needed for lethal injection, which remains the most widely used method in other states.

The only other state that has executed a prisoner by firing squad in modern times was Utah in 2010. The state also used it to execute prisoners in 1996 and 1977.

“There is no justice here,” Mr. King said in a statement announcing Mr. Sigmon’s execution choice. “Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity — from the choice to the method itself — is abjectly cruel. We should not just be horrified — we should be furious.”

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