The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that firing squad and other methods of execution generally considered cruel and unusual are legal in the state if an inmate requests that method of execution.
of Verdict This comes after the state passed a law in 2021 allowing firing squad and electrocution in addition to executions following a shortage of execution drugs and a rise in accidents during executions.
This law made electrocution the default method of execution because states were unable to find a reliable source of lethal injection drugs.
Death row inmates appealed the change to the state, but the conservative-majority Supreme Court sided with state prosecutors, and the ruling is likely to mean executions will resume in the state.
South Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2011. There are currently 32 inmates on death row in the state.
Justice John Few wrote in the majority decision that the 2021 law was not intended to cause further suffering, but was a “good faith effort to reduce the inhumanity of the death penalty while allowing states to enforce the law.”
“The inescapable reality that any execution may not go as planned – that it may ‘fail’ – does not mean that the method is constitutionally ‘cruel,'” he added.
Firing is a legal method of execution in only five states, and only three have been carried out by firing squad since 1976, all in Utah, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Death Penalty Information CenterThis is the least common form of state enforcement.
Electrocution is now the primary execution method in South Carolina following the passage of a 2021 law, and it is also legal in seven other states, all of which use lethal injection as their primary execution method.
Gov. Henry McMaster (R) praised the court’s decision in a statement Wednesday.
“The Supreme Court has rightly upheld the rule of law,” the governor said. “Today’s ruling is another step toward ensuring that lawful sentences are properly carried out and that the victims’ families and loved ones receive the closure and justice they have long sought.”
