On Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided that the state’s death penalty is legal. This includes methods such as the electric chair, firing squad, and lethal injection.
All five justices agreed with parts of the decision, which means executions can start again. However, two justices said they didn’t think the firing squad was a “legal method.” Another said the electric chair is “cruel and unusual punishment.”
South Carolina hasn’t executed anyone since 2011. However, according to Justice 360, a group that fights for fairness in death penalty cases, the state has 32 inmates on death row. Four of them are suing, and four others have used all their appeals. Two are awaiting hearings to decide if they are mentally fit enough to face execution.
South Carolina used to execute about three people each year and had over 60 inmates on death row in 2011. Since then, successful appeals and natural deaths have reduced the number.
In the past 13 years, prosecutors have only sent three new prisoners to death row. Because of rising costs, a shortage of lethal injection drugs, and more robust defenses, they now choose to accept guilty pleas and give life sentences without parole.
The recent South Carolina Supreme Court ruling follows the state’s 2021 law that allowed executions by firing squad and electrocution, in addition to lethal injection. This change was made because there was a shortage of lethal injection drugs and problems with how executions were carried out.
Lethal injection involves giving inmates a series of drugs to cause death. The drugs typically include a sedative, a paralytic agent, and a drug that stops the heart. South Carolina couldn’t get any more of those drugs after the last supply ran out ten years ago.
Pharmaceutical companies have made it hard for states to get pentobarbital, the primary drug used for lethal injections. The companies have limited its use, and lethal injection is not listed. This drug also faces a lot of public and legal issues, with debates about whether it’s effective and concerns about its ethical use. Some people worry that pentobarbital is not enough to ensure a painless death.
The law made electrocution the primary method of execution but offered the option of a firing squad. Death row inmates sued the state over these changes, but the court supported the state’s decision. Executions are expected to start up again in South Carolina after this ruling.
In February, the state argued before the Supreme Court that lethal injection, electrocution, and the firing squad all follow the “death penalty rules.” Grayson Lambert, a lawyer for Gov. Henry McMaster, said that courts have never ruled that executions must be instant or painless.
Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman had blocked executions by electric chair or firing squad. She mentioned that experts had testified that prisoners would experience severe pain, whether from the electric chair or from a firing squad that missed its target.
Justice John Few wrote that the 2021 law wasn’t meant to cause more suffering but was a “sincere effort” to allow the state to enforce its laws humanely. He also said that the fact an execution might not go as planned doesn’t make the method “cruel” according to the Constitution.
“Choice cannot be considered cruel because the condemned inmate may elect to have the State employ the method he and his lawyers believe will cause him the least pain,” Few wrote in his decision.
The firing squad is a legal method of execution in five states, and there have been just three executions by firing squad since 1976, all in Utah. This makes it the least common way of carrying out executions.
Electrocution is legal in seven states, but others have some surprising methods on the books. Although the gas chamber is no longer used, California still has it listed as a method of execution. And until recently, Delaware, Washington, and New Hampshire allowed inmates to be hung.
It’s not surprising inmates in South Carolina are expected to take their chances with lethal injection.
