Executions Halted in South Carolina Amid Challenges to Constitutionality of Firing Squad and Electric Chair

The South Carolina Supreme Court has halt­ed two sched­uled exe­cu­tions, includ­ing one that would have been the state’s first exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad, amid ongo­ing legal chal­lenges by state death-row pris­on­ers to the state’s execution methods.

In sep­a­rate orders, the state’s high court issued stays of exe­cu­tion for Richard Moore, who was sched­uled to be put to death by fir­ing squad on April 29, 2022, and to Brad Sigmon, who faced a May 13, 2022 exe­cu­tion date. It was the third stay of exe­cu­tion for each man. Previously, South Carolina had set exe­cu­tions for the men by lethal injec­tion with­out hav­ing a sup­ply of drugs to car­ry them out, then sched­uled exe­cu­tions by elec­tric chair with­out com­ply­ing with a state-law require­ment that they be pro­vid­ed the option to die by firing squad. 

South Carolina has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in more than a decade. 

In response to the state’s fail­ure to obtain lethal-injec­tion drugs, the leg­is­la­ture in 2021 passed a new law mak­ing elec­tro­cu­tion the state’s default method of exe­cu­tion if lethal injec­tion is unavail­able. The law also gives death-row pris­on­ers the option to be exe­cut­ed by firing squad.

Moore had filed notice on April 15, 2022 that he was select­ing fir­ing squad, but he stat­ed in court fil­ings, ​“I believe this elec­tion is forc­ing me to choose between two uncon­sti­tu­tion­al meth­ods of exe­cu­tion.” He said, ​“I more strong­ly oppose death by elec­tro­cu­tion. Because the Department says I must choose between fir­ing squad or elec­tro­cu­tion or be exe­cut­ed by elec­tro­cu­tion I will elect fir­ing squad.” ​“I do not believe or con­cede that either the fir­ing squad or elec­tro­cu­tion is legal or con­sti­tu­tion­al,” the filing explained.

On April 20, 2022, the same day the court stayed Moore’s exe­cu­tion, it issued a death war­rant for Sigmon. The court did not explain the rea­sons for grant­i­ng Moore a stay, say­ing only that “[a] more detailed order set­ting forth the para­me­ters of the stay” would fol­low. When the court two days lat­er issued a sim­i­lar order stay­ing Sigmon’s exe­cu­tion, observers spec­u­lat­ed that the stays were relat­ed to ongo­ing litigation chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of both elec­tro­cu­tion and firing squad. 

On April 14, Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman issued a rul­ing deny­ing South Carolina’s motion to dis­miss the pris­on­ers’ law­suit chal­leng­ing the state’s exe­cu­tion meth­ods. The pris­on­ers’ suit argues that both the elec­tric chair and the fir­ing squad vio­late South Carolina’s con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el, cor­po­ral, or unusu­al pun­ish­ments. ​“The elec­tric chair and the fir­ing squad are anti­quat­ed, bar­bar­ic meth­ods of exe­cu­tion that vir­tu­al­ly all American juris­dic­tions have left behind,” attor­ney Lindsey Vann, rep­re­sent­ing the pris­on­ers, wrote in the lawsuit. 

The pris­on­ers also argue that South Carolina has denied them the statu­to­ry right to des­ig­nate lethal injec­tion as an exe­cu­tion option, say­ing the state depart­ment of cor­rec­tions has not made ade­quate efforts to obtain exe­cu­tion drugs. The state argues that it has made ​“dili­gent efforts,” but ​“has been unable to obtain or acquire the nec­es­sary drugs for exe­cu­tion by lethal injection.” 

In an affi­davit, Bryan P. Stirling, direc­tor of the state’s Department of Corrections, assert­ed that offi­cials have con­tact­ed mul­ti­ple drug man­u­fac­tur­ers, ​“all of which have refused to sell the drugs to the Department.” Efforts to obtain the drugs from com­pound­ing phar­ma­cies have also been unsuc­cess­ful, he said. ​“As a result lethal injec­tion is not avail­able to the Department as a method of exe­cu­tion,” Stirling wrote. The depart­ment did not pro­vide doc­u­men­tary evi­dence in sup­port of its assertions.

South Carolina is one of only four states that autho­rize exe­cu­tions by fir­ing squad. The oth­er three – Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah – all use lethal injec­tion as their pri­ma­ry method. Only three peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed by fir­ing squad since exe­cu­tions resumed in the U.S. in 1977. All three fir­ing squad exe­cu­tions took place in Utah; the most recent was Ronnie Gardner on June 18, 2010.