On May 14, 2021, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed a bill into law that would provide death row prisoners with the choice between firing squad or electric chair if lethal injection drugs are not available for their execution.
State Senator Greg Hembree, a vocal proponent of the death penalty, remarked "to have the death penalty and then not be allowed to carry it out is committing fraud upon the citizens we represent." Opponents of the law, including State Representative Justin Bamberg, take issue with presenting the two options as fair and equitable choices. “We're going to force people to get electrocuted and give them the choice of getting shot instead when that wasn't even the law when they were convicted of their crime," Rep. Bamberg stated.
This change in available protocols is the result of difficulties the state experienced in acquiring the drugs needed for lethal injection. Many pharmaceutical companies in South Carolina have stopped selling these drugs for the purpose of executions due to the lack of state secrecy laws that would otherwise shield their identities.
Before the bill was signed, death row prisoners in South Carolina could choose whether to be executed by the electric chair and lethal injection. Most opted for lethal injection knowing that they could not be executed due to the lack of lethal injection drugs, frustrating some conservative lawmakers. Prisoners that failed to choose, including death row prisoner Richard Moore, whose execution was originally scheduled for last December, were defaulted to lethal injection by law, and as a result, the state was unable carry out those executions.
The signed bill leaves lethal injection as the primary form of execution but provides a second default method of execution: if lethal injection is not available, the prisoner will be put to death by electric chair unless they select a firing squad. In addition, prisoners are required to decide at least two weeks before their execution date or they lose the ability to choose their method of execution.
South Carolina is now one of four states including Mississippi, Utah, and Oklahoma to elect a firing squad as an option for execution. According to Chrysti Shain, South Carolina’s Department of Corrections (DOC) Communication Director, the state has been “working to develop protocols and procedures to proceed with execution by firing squad.”
In response to the new law, death row prisoners Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens filed a lawsuit against the state, arguing that because lethal injection was the primary form of execution when they were sentenced to death, a change of method would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The case came before the South Carolina Supreme Court, which found that prisoners have a statutory right to select their method of execution and the State’s attempt to execute Owens and Sigmon by means of electrocution without an alternative violated that right. On June 16th, the state Supreme Court vacated both Sigmon and Owens’ death warrants while preserving electrocution as an available option. The Court also ordered that the state DOC needs to have “developed and implemented appropriate protocols and policies to carry out executions by firing squad” before another execution notice can be issued.