South Carolina’s high court ruled Wednesday that death row inmates can be executed by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, opening the door to restarting executions after more than a decade.
All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two judges said they believed firing squads were not a legal way to kill prisoners, and one judge said the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment.
In the United States, 27 states allow the death penalty, but only seven have executed prisoners in the past three years, with lawyers and advocates arguing over excessive pain, due process and the legality of new methods, such as nitrogen asphyxiation or sparse firing squads. For use outside the military.
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“We begin by acknowledging the reality that there is simply no elegant way to kill someone,” Justice John Fife wrote in the majority opinion.
Fife wrote that South Carolina’s decision to allow inmates to choose from three methods of execution was never intended to inflict pain but was a sincere attempt to make the death penalty less inhumane.
As many as eight inmates may not be eligible for traditional appeals. It’s unclear when executions could resume or whether there will be an appeal.
“We are currently evaluating next steps in the lawsuit and remain committed to advocating to protect our clients’ rights,” said Lindsey Vann, an attorney with the prisoner advocacy group Justice 360.
FILE – This undated photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state’s death chamber in Columbia, South Carolina, including the electric chair on the right and firing squad chairs on the left. On Monday, July 22, 2024, Quincy Allen, 44, who was serving a life sentence for killing two people in South Carolina, agreed to be sentenced after a federal court overturned his 2005 death sentence. He was sentenced to life in prison and released from death row on July 22, 2024. (South Carolina Department of Corrections, AP, File)
Corrections Director Brian Sterling said South Carolina could enforce any of the three methods once the state Supreme Court issues an enforcement order.
“The choice cannot be considered cruel because a sentenced prisoner may choose to have the state adopt the method that he and his attorney believe will cause him the least pain,” Fife wrote.
South Carolina has executed 43 inmates since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
South Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2011. The judges said the state was allowed to use one drug instead of three after the shield law passed in 2023 allowed officials to keep the supplier of the lethal injection drug secret and after it obtained the sedative pentobarbital in September.
Lawmakers authorized the state to establish firing squads in 2021, giving inmates a choice between the death penalty and the electric chair the state purchased in 1912. .
Four of the five justices agreed that none of the three methods were considered cruel under the state constitution. Judge John Kittredge said he would rule that the firing squad was illegal because it was unusual – it had been in existence since South Carolina’s statehood but had never been used.
Chief Justice Don Beatty said both the electric chair and the firing squad were cruel. He said a firing squad would leave a bloody scene and there was no guarantee that the three executioners would be able to accurately target the heart. Beatty said the electric chair is rarely used anymore because it is painful and disfiguring. “Prisoners are engulfed in flames, suffer extensive burns, and bleed to death.”
Beatty compared the electric chair to burning someone at the stake.
“The only difference, in my opinion, is the ‘modernization’ of the method of ignition over the last century – from matches to electric current. The end result of this process has, for all intents and purposes, remained the same,” Beatty wrote road.
The judge said the prison director must still provide evidence that the lethal injection drugs were stable and properly mixed. Prisoners can sue if they disagree with the decision, and the court promises a speedy decision.
South Carolina has 32 people on death row. Four inmates are suing, but four others have also completed appeals, although two of them will face competency hearings before being executed, according to Justice 360.
Gov. Henry McMaster said the justices interpreted the law correctly. “This decision is another step toward ensuring that lawful sentences can be properly enforced and that victims’ families and loved ones receive the closure and justice they have long awaited,” he said in a statement.
The state said in arguments filed with the state Supreme Court in February that lethal injection, electrocution and execution are consistent with existing death penalty protocols. “The courts have never held that death must be instantaneous or painless,” wrote Grayson Lambert, a lawyer in the governor’s office.
South Carolina used to perform an average of three executions per year, and the last execution in 2011 had more than 60 inmates on death row.
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In the past 13 years, prosecutors have sent only three new inmates to death row. Faced with rising costs, a lack of lethal injection drugs and a stronger defense, they have chosen to accept guilty pleas and life in prison without the possibility of parole, even in some cases where a convicted murderer was initially sent to death row by a jury.
