South Carolina wants to bring back the firing squad and electric chair as the state argues that “painless” deaths are not mandatory.
Among the 33 inmates on death row in the Palmetto State, four inmates argue that the electric chair and firing squad are cruel and unusual punishments. Inmates also say a 2023 law allowing lethal injections is too secretive about many details of the new drug.
However, the governor of the Palmetto State disagrees, saying all three methods fit existing protocol and that painless executions are not required by law.
“Courts have never held that death has to be instantaneous or painless,” wrote Grayson Lambert, an attorney in Gov. Henry McMaster’s office.
Currently, the electric chair serves as a secondary option in South Carolina if lethal injection doesn’t work. Lawmakers added the firing squad to the list of options in 2021.
In September, the state changed its lethal injection method to use the sedative pentobarbital, meaning inmates would only need one injection instead of three. Very little is known about the new drug and prison officials have only said that the method is similar to the protocol followed by the federal government and six other states.
Among the 33 inmates on death row in the Palmetto State, four inmates argue that the electric chair and firing squad are cruel and unusual punishments. AP
Inmates argue that pentobarbital, compounded and mixed, has a shelf life of about 45 days. They want to know if there is a regular supplier of the drug and what guidelines exist for trying it.
If the drug is too weak, the inmate may not die. If it is too strong, it could form small clumps that would cause severe pain when injected, court documents state.
“No inmate in the country has been executed with so little transparency about how he would be executed,” wrote Justice 360 attorney Lindsey Vann.
Lawyers for the state, however, argue that inmates only want that information so they can find the pharmaceutical company and pressure them to stop.
The state has not proposed adding nitrogen gas, like Alabama, which recently carried out the first execution using the toxic chemical.
However, the southern state disagrees and says that all three methods fit the existing protocol and that it is not mandatory to offer painless executions. Currently, South Carolina’s second option if lethal injection doesn’t work is the electric chair. AP
South Carolina has not carried out capital punishment in nearly 13 years after drugs used for lethal injection expired and companies refused to sell them to prisons unless they could hide their identities from the public.
During a 90-minute hearing Tuesday, the justices questioned whether the firing squad would be considered an unusual punishment, since it has only been used three times in total in the past 50 years and all have taken place in Utah.
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They also questioned the electrical conductivity of the human skull and whether modern science had answers about whether the method is more painful or cruel and was originally imposed a century ago.
South Carolina asked the Supreme Court to throw out a 2022 lower court ruling that said the electric chair and firing squad were cruel.
Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman sided with the inmates in November, saying the prisoners would face terrible pain if their bodies were “cooked” with 2,000 volts of electricity or if they were shot three times by a firing squad.
More than a decade ago, South Carolina carried out about three executions a year and had about 60 on death row. Since then, several have won appeals, reducing the number to 33.
Only three prisoners have been sent to death row in the last 13 years in the state due to a lack of lethal injection drugs and stronger defenses against it. Many prosecutors now accept life in prison without parole rather than seeking the death penalty.
With mail cables.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn