Firing squad. Electric chair. Lethal injection. Here's how'd they work in South Carolina. (2024)

COLUMBIA — Inmates on South Carolina's death row went from one possible way to die, to three.

Lethal injection, firing squad or the electric chair.

It was the result of several years of litigation by a quartet of death row inmates who had exhausted every other legal avenue to save their lives.

But on July 31, the state Supreme Court ruled that none of the three methods run afoul of the state Constitution's definition of "cruel, corporal, or unusual punishment."

The majority decision especially focused on the yet-to-be-tested use of a firing squad, which was adopted by the state Legislature in 2021 as a means of giving the condemned a choice in how they were to die.

The ruling sets up what could be the first execution in the state since 2011.

In the decision's aftermath, few specifics are known about any of the methods the state plans to deploy. While general facts are known— where the executions will be carried out, for example — more granular aspects of the executions, like the qualifications of the individual executioners, are guarded secrets.

The following descriptions of each penalty are based on court documents, available public records and interviews with experts on capital punishment.

The S.C. Department of Corrections, as it has in the past, declined to provide copies of its protocols. But witnesses and media representatives would be present in each instance and method.

Firing squad

While sparse, South Carolina has published some details on its firing squad protocol.

Inmates will be restrained ina metal chair located in the same room as the current electric chair (at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia)which cannot be moved, 15 feet away from an opening in the wall.

Three firing squad members —volunteers from within the state prison system who are determined to have met certain unpublished qualifications —will be behind the wall, with rifles all loaded with live ammunition and facing the inmate through the opening.

A small aim point will be placed over the inmate's heart by a member of the execution team and, after the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire.

The type of rifle used is not public. But it is known the type of ammunition inmates would be shot with: a .308 caliber Winchester, which has been touted by its manufacturer as an "excellent choice for high collateral risk environments."

While firing squad executions have been universally successful, according to Death Penalty Information Center figures on botched executions, the state Supreme Court conceded in its decision July 31 that the executed inmate could potentially feel pain in the "10 to 15 seconds" before their death.

The shootings aren't always clean affairs. Autopsy photos of an inmate executed by firing squad in Utah reviewed by The Post and Courier showed the deceased with several gaping wounds, only one of which appeared to hit their heart.

In court, some experts have argued the shock and loss of blood during an execution by firing squad would be so severe, the inmate would not feel pain. And even liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has argued the method is considerably more humane than other forms of capital punishment.

South Carolina's bill sponsor, Columbia Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian, who is a former prosecutor, said he saw the firing squad as a more humane option than the electric chair, which he'd personally seen in action.

"His blood boiled, his hair almost caught on fire, his eyes … I think they did explode in his head," Harpootlian toldNew York Magazinein 2022 about the 1993 execution of infamous murderer Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins. "And it wasn’t that quick. They had to give him two jolts."

Electrocution

Of all three execution methods available to the S.C. Department of Corrections, the electric chair is the oldest. First used during an execution in an upstate New York prison in 1898, the Palmetto State's first electric chair arrived to Columbia in 1912.

Some components of the original device are still in use today, corrections officials have confirmed, while attorneys representing death row inmates have alleged other past components — like an electrifying helmet reportedly purchased from disgraced execution technicianFred Leuchter in the 1980s — are still potentially in use today.

South Carolina corrections officials have not disclosed specific information about the device itself, and while the instrument is regularly maintained and tested, it is unclear how often that takes place. The only issue in its last inspection, according to court records, was some minor corrosion on the copper wire basket inside of the helmet. But it's not clear what equipment is the same and what isn't.

"Electrical components have been updated as needed and as technology has improved," SCDOC spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.

What has been revealed in court is how powerful the fatal jolt is:2,000 volts for 4.5 seconds, 1,000 volts for eight seconds, and then 120 volts for two minutes.

Electrodes are strapped to the condemned's head and legs, and a lone operator is provided a key-turn to allow system to engage the system. Once ready, all that's left is to push a button.

Since the 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case resuming the use of the death penalty, just seven people in South Carolina have been executed by the electric chair, the most recent being convicted murderer James Early Reed—who was said to have an intellectual impairment that left him with an IQof 77 —in 2008.

Nationally, fewer than 2 percent of executions by electric chair have been botched.

In South Carolina, each execution was successful — minus one, the execution of 14-year-old George Stinney Jr. in 1944 —in ending the inmate's life within minutes.

But several published accounts of executions pre-1976, like the execution Harpootlian witnessed, were gruesome.

"It's been problematic from the very first execution," said Dr. Deborah Denno, an expert on capital punishment methods at the Fordham University School of Law. "We just have page after page of all the problems associated with electrocution, all the botches over and over again, and they've only gotten worse with time."

It's also unpredictable. When Raymond Carney— a Black man convicted of murder by an all-white jury in the 1950s— was put to death in 1954, newspapers at the time reported it took six minutes and five 2,400-volt surges to end his life, due to what doctors described as an "abnormally strong heart."

One year later, Clay Daniels— one of two brothers sentenced to die for sexual assault—survived an initial four-minute shock of 2,400 volts as well as ensuing shocks of 1,350 volts and 2,400 volts, the latter of which lasted for two minutes. The execution was so brutal, a witness penned an op-ed in the Orangeburg Times and Democrat calling for an end to electrocution and the adoption of the gas chamber as the state’s method of execution.

Experts called by Justice360 during the course of litigating South Carolina's use of the electric chair said in written affidavits to the court that current protocols were unlikely to guarantee that wouldn't happen again.

"There is a substantial risk that a prisoner electrocuted using South Carolina’s Electrocution Protocol and electrocution event will remain alive, conscious, and sensate for some period of time during the electrocution process," Dr. John Wikswo, a distinguished professor of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt University, wrote to the court.

Lethal injection

Executions by lethal injection, South Carolina's most-often deployed method of executing inmates, has not been used since 2011. That was around the time the state's existing store of a three-drug co*cktail used to put death row inmates to death had surpassed its shelf life, and when pharmaceutical companies around the country began refusing to sell governments new drugs out of fear they could be publicly identified.

After South Carolina passed a law in 2021 allowing the identities of those drug manufacturers to be hidden from the public, the Department of Corrections announced it had secured a new supply ofpentobarbital— a barbiturate commonly used in putting down pets as well as in federal executions — after reaching out tomore than 1,300 sources, according to estimates from Gov. Henry McMaster's office.

The source of the drugs, who the state solicited for them, and the state's current lethal injection protocols, which were revised after the 2021 law, are not public. But in past protocols involving the three drug co*cktail that have been made public, attendees have included a physician, three executioners, two electricians, a medical technician, the warden, his assistants, and a chaplain (if requested) are all present, and all with varying roles in facilitating the execution. State law prohibits anyone identifying a member of the team.

It is unclear what will change with a single drug. UnderNorth Carolina's policy, which utilizes a similar method, the intravenous lines, catheters and EKG monitors to the inmate are administered by registered nurses, while the drug is ultimately injected by a sole designated executioner.

There have been issues with South Carolina's medical staff in past lethal injections.

During the 1997 execution of convicted murdererMichael Eugene Elkins— whosebody had become swollen from liver and spleen problems— executionerstook nearly one hour to find a suitable vein for the insertion of the catheter. At one point, Elkinstried to assist the executioners, asking "Should I lean my head down a little bit?" as they probed for a vein, only for them to eventually find one in Elkins’ neck.

It is disputed whether the inmate suffers during the process amid broader questions over the qualifications of prison medical staff, and whether inmates are properly anesthetized.

An autopsy performed by a Michigan-based pathologist after 68-year-old WesleyPurkey was put to deathby the federal government in 2020found evidence he experienced a "drowning" sensation during the execution, theAssociated Press reported.

Dozens of other autopsy reports of death row inmates reviewed by physicians at Emory University Hospital found inmates werestill breathingduring their executions, and died similarly.

There's no real way to ensure whether South Carolina could avoid those issues, since little is actually known about the process. That's by choice, argues Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher.

"There is really no valid reason why state officials— who are utilizing taxpayer funds and performing an official governmental function— do not provide detailed information about these methods or answer questions that will help ensure that a prisoner does not suffer an unconstitutionally painful death," she said.

Life on death row

Since July 2019, death row inmates are housed on the grounds of Broad River Correctional Institute, a maximum security facility on the outskirts of Columbia. They are segregated from the general population and, by state law, are barred from speaking to the news media, but can communicate by letter.

When all of an inmate's legal appeals have been exhausted, a death warrant is issued, a date is set and, within 14 days of their execution, an inmate is required to choose between electrocution, firing squad, or lethal injection. If the convicted person waives the right to choose, they will be executed by the electric chair.

Nobody from the general public is allowed to witness an execution. According to state law, witnesses are to includethree of the victims' family members approved by the director of the department of corrections, a prosecutor fromthe county where the offense occurred, three news reporters,one representative from the law enforcement agency that had original jurisdiction in the case,and their choice of two of the following: their lawyer, a religious leader, or up to two members of their immediate family.