Entries tagged with “John W. Kittredge”

Feb 06, 2024

South Carolina Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Constitutionality of Electrocution and Firing Squad, Considers Scope of Secrecy Law

On February 6, 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral argu­ments in Owens v. Stirling, a case in which death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers chal­lenged the state’s elec­tro­cu­tion and fir­ing squad exe­cu­tion meth­ods as uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. A South Carolina tri­al court had pre­vi­ous­ly held an exten­sive evi­den­tiary hear­ing and issued an injunc­tion against use of those meth­ods based on the state’s con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against ​“cru­el,” ​“unusu­al,” or ​“cor­po­ral” pun­ish­ments. For almost 90 min­utes the par­ties dis­cussed the expert tes­ti­mo­ny and evi­dence con­sid­ered by the dis­trict court, while also spend­ing sub­stan­tial time debat­ing the…