South Carolina death penalty methods are legal, including firing squad, state's high court rules
South Carolina can execute death row inmates by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, the state's high court ruled Wednesday, opening the door to restart executions after more than a decade.
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said they felt the firing squad was not a legal way to kill an inmate and one of them felt the electric chair is a cruel and unusual punishment.
The state allowing inmates to choose from the three execution methods is far from an effort to inflict pain but a sincere attempt at making the death penalty less inhumane, Justice John Few wrote in the majority opinion.
"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.
As many as eight inmates may be out of traditional appeals. It is unclear when executions could restart or whether lawyers for death row inmates can appeal the ruling.
Gov. Henry McMaster said the justices interpreted the law correctly. "This decision is another step in ensuring that lawful sentences can be duly enforced and the families and loved ones of the victims receive the closure and justice they have long awaited," he said in a statement.
Lawyers for the death row inmates said they were reviewing the 94-page ruling before commenting.
This decision follows arguments from lawyers representing a group of people on death row that the electric chair and firing squad are cruel and unusual punishments.
South Carolina has executed 43 inmates since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. Nearly all inmates have chosen lethal injection.
South Carolina hasn't performed an execution since 2011. The state's supplies of drugs for lethal injections expired and no pharmaceutical companies would sell more if they could be publicly identified.
The nation's ongoing nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs has also prompted states like South Carolina to turn to alternative execution methods like death by firing squad.
Lawmakers authorized the state to create a firing squad in 2021 to give inmates a choice between it and the old electric chair, which the law designated as the default execution method if lethal injection drugs were unavailable. The inmates sued, saying either choice was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution.
In spring 2023, the Legislature passed a shield law to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and the state announced in September it had the sedative pentobarbital and changed the method of lethal injection execution from using three drugs to just one.
The state's high court allowed the inmates to add arguments that the shield law was too secret by not releasing the potency, purity and stabilization of lethal injection drugs.
The state said in its argument before the state Supreme Court in February that lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad all fit existing death penalty protocols. "Courts have never held the death has to be instantaneous or painless," wrote Grayson Lambert, a lawyer for Gov. McMaster's office.
But lawyers for the inmates asked the justices to agree with Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman who stopped executions with the electric chair or firing squad.
She cited the inmates' experts, who testified at a trial that prisoners would feel terrible pain whether their bodies were "cooking" by 2,000 volts of electricity in the chair, built in 1912, or if their hearts were stopped by bullets — assuming the three shooters were on target — from the yet-to-be used firing squad.
The first scheduled execution by firing squad was slated for April 2022 but did not come to pass after the state's highest court issued a temporary order.
On the shield law, the attorneys for the inmate said they need to know if there is a regular supplier for the drug since it typically only has a shelf life of 45 days and what guidelines are in place to test the drug and make sure it is what the seller claims.
Too weak, and inmates may suffer without dying. Too strong, and the drug molecules can form tiny clumps that would cause intense pain when injected, according to court papers.
"No inmate in the country has ever been put to death with such little transparency about how he or she would be executed," Justice 360 lawyer Lindsey Vann wrote.
Lawyers for the inmates did tell the justices in February that lethal injection appears to be legal when it follows proper protocols, with information about the drug given to the condemned in a manner that matches what other states and the federal government use.
South Carolina used to carry out an average of three executions a year and had more than 60 inmates on death row when the last execution was carried out in 2011. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are now 35 inmates on South Carolina's death row.
Prosecutors have sent only three new prisoners to death row in the past 13 years. Facing rising costs, the lack of lethal injection drugs and more vigorous defenses, they are choosing to accept guilty pleas and life in prison without parole.