South Carolina now ready to facilitate executions by firing squad

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• South Carolina has passed a bill last year that would give an option to inmates to be executed by firing squad.
• State officials announced on Friday that they completed renovations at a correctional facility to carry out those executions. 
• The state passed the legislation after it had difficulty getting lethal injection drugs. 

South Carolina officials announced Friday that the state now has the means to facilitate firing squad executions. It joins three other states — Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah — where it is legal to carry out a death sentence in that manner.

The Attorney General’s office has been alerted about the developed protocols and completed renovations, according to the state Department of Corrections. Executions will be carried out at a correctional facility in the capital city of Columbia.

“The death chamber has been renovated to accommodate a firing squad. The chamber now includes a chair in which inmates will sit if they choose execution by firing squad,” the press release said.

In May 2021, South Carolina authorized the death penalty policy changes. Death row inmates in the state now have three possible methods of execution — death by rifles, the option to be shot by a three-man squad; death by lethal injection when drugs are available; and death by electric chair, the state’s primary mode of execution.

Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah use lethal injection as their primary method. In Utah, three executions by firing squad have been carried out since 1976, the Death Penalty Information Center said.

Convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, was the last person in the U.S. to be executed by firing squad in 2010.

The last execution in South Carolina was carried out in 2011 to Jeffrey Motts. The 36-year-old was put to death by lethal injection after a 2005 conviction for the murder of a cellmate.

South Carolina has carried out a total of 43 executions since the death penalty has been reinstated in the country in 1977. The state has 35 inmates on death row, according to the Department of Corrections.

The death chamber at Columbia’s prison was renovated to add a firing squad metal chair, protective equipment and bullet-proof glass to separate the viewing room.

Members of the three-man firing squad are volunteer correctional employees who should meet specified qualifications, the press release said.

Source: Reuters