Arguments begin to determine S.C. electric chair, firing squad legality

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - South Carolina’s highest court will hear arguments Thursday on whether a newly organized firing squad or the old electric chair are legal ways to execute inmates in the state, which has been unable to obtain drugs for lethal injections.

The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that executions by electrocution or firing squad cause excruciating pain and are cruel and unusual punishments.

South Carolina hasn’t conducted an execution since 2011. Since then, the state’s lethal injection drugs have expired and administrators have been unable to buy more.

That led lawmakers in 2021 to pass a bill essentially requiring condemned inmates to be electrocuted unless they choose the firing squad.

Copyright 2023 WMBF. All rights reserved.