Lawyers Raise Concern as Autopsy Finds South Carolina’s Second Firing Squad Execution May Have Been Botched

On May 8, 2025, Mikal Deen Mahdi’s lawyers sub­mit­ted to the South Carolina Supreme Court the state pathol­o­gy report in his case which sug­gests that Mr. Mahdi’s exe­cu­tion last month by fir­ing squad did not go as planned. Pathologists report­ed that not only did Mr. Mahdi have two wounds as opposed to the antic­i­pat­ed three wounds from three South Carolina Corrections Department (SCDC) shoot­ers, but also that they missed the intend­ed tar­get over his heart, pro­long­ing his death.

Mr. Mahdi was the sec­ond indi­vid­ual to be exe­cut­ed via fir­ing squad in South Carolina since it was intro­duced as an alter­na­tive method to elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal injec­tion in 2021. On March 7, 2025, Brad Keith Sigmon was the first indi­vid­ual to be exe­cut­ed by fir­ing squad in South Carolina fol­low­ing lit­i­ga­tion in which his attor­neys argued that he faced an impos­si­ble choice between exe­cu­tion meth­ods. South Carolina law requires that con­demned indi­vid­u­als choose which method of exe­cu­tion the state uses: elec­tro­cu­tion, fir­ing squad, and lethal injec­tion. Citing recent­ly botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions, Mr. Sigmon’s team request­ed that the South Carolina Supreme Court order SCDC to pro­vide more infor­ma­tion about the lethal injec­tion drugs and pro­to­cols. His request was denied. 

Even though the state uti­lized the same com­pa­ny to per­form Mr. Sigmon and Mr. Mahdi’s autop­sies, the lev­el of doc­u­men­ta­tion and evi­dence var­ied wide­ly between the two cas­es. NPR report­ed they were able to review over 20 pho­tos in rela­tion to Mr. Sigmon’s autop­sy, rang­ing from X‑rays to inter­nal and exter­nal imagery, which clear­ly indi­cat­ed three bul­let wounds. However, with Mr. Mahdi’s autop­sy, his lawyers only received one pho­to of his tor­so show­ing two bul­let wounds, and no X‑ray or addi­tion­al imagery includ­ing a cloth­ing analy­sis, which was pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed with Mr. Sigmon’s autopsy. 

As for the dis­crep­an­cy of wounds, the state’s pathol­o­gy report denotes that ​“it is believed that” two bul­lets entered through one wound, but a sep­a­rate pathol­o­gist com­mis­sioned by Mr. Mahdi’s team, who observed the equiv­a­lent siz­ing of the two wounds, stat­ed, ​“the odds of that are pret­ty minus­cule.” In a com­ment to NPR, Mr. Mahdi’s attor­ney David Weiss com­ment­ed, “[i]t’s not ful­ly clear what hap­pened. Did one of the gun­men not fire? Did their gun get jammed? Did they miss? We just have no idea at this point.”

Although the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of uti­liz­ing the fir­ing squad was heav­i­ly lit­i­gat­ed, the state supreme court found that it was not cru­el or unusu­al if there was any pain, as it would last only 10 to 15 sec­onds ​“unless there is a mas­sive botch of the exe­cu­tion in which each mem­ber of the fir­ing squad sim­ply miss­es the inmate’s heart.” Reports indi­cat­ed that the autop­sy indi­cat­ed that none of the bul­lets direct­ly hit Mr. Mahdi’s heart, instead pierc­ing his liv­er and caus­ing dam­age to his liv­er and oth­er inter­nal organs and allow­ing his heart to keep beat­ing. Lawyers for Mr. Mahdi com­mis­sioned a sec­ond pathol­o­gist, Dr. Jonathan Arden, to exam­ine the state’s autop­sy report. According to Dr. Arden, ​“Mr. Mahdi did expe­ri­ence excru­ci­at­ing con­scious pain and suf­fer­ing for about 30 to 60 sec­onds after he was shot[.]” 

Because of a​“shield law” passed in 2023, the state refus­es to pro­vide spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion regard­ing the indi­vid­u­als involved in car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tion. However, accord­ing to a SCDC press release regard­ing the fir­ing squad pro­to­col, ​“three fir­ing squad mem­bers will be behind the wall … A small aim point will be placed over his heart… [and] after the war­den reads the exe­cu­tion order, the team will fire.”