South Carolina prepares for first firing squad execution, ushering return of rare method
The overhaul of South Carolina’s death chamber was completed three years ago.
The overhaul of South Carolina’s death chamber was completed three years ago. Now, a team of sharpshooters is practicing its aim for what is poised to be the first firing squad execution in the state’s history on Friday.
Death by firing squad remains an extremely uncommon form of capital punishment in the United States, with only three carried out since the death penalty was ruled constitutional in 1976. All three occurred in Utah — the last in 2010, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
Brad Sigmon, the condemned South Carolina prisoner, opted for firing squad over the state’s primary method of electrocution or the more widely used practice of lethal injection.
“He’s made the best choice that he can, but the fact that he had to make it at all is horrifying,” said Sigmon’s lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King.
Sigmon, 67, who was convicted in 2002 in the beating deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s parents, declined lethal injection, King said, because of concerns over its use in the last three executions in South Carolina.
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