Macabre state of U.S. capital punishment leads death row prisoner to ‘choose’ firing squad
Why is Brad Sigmon set to be executed by firing squad in South Carolina on Friday? Technically, because he chose that rare, seemingly outdated method.
But as Sigmon told the Supreme Court in a pending bid to avoid that fate, it wasn’t much of a choice. That’s not due to the obvious desire to dodge a state-sanctioned death entirely. Rather, the way the state has handled the matter has made it “impossible” for the prisoner “to assess which method is the more inhumane; to avoid the electric chair, he chose firing squad,” his lawyers told the high court.
Guilt isn’t at issue for Sigmon, who in 2002 was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering Gladys and David Larke, his ex-girlfriend’s parents. As is often the case in death penalty appeals, he’s challenging the procedures behind how the state wants to kill him. The Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority has been broadly skeptical of death row claims, making it a difficult, though not impossible, task for prisoners like Sigmon to win such challenges.
South Carolina’s execution law says inmates will be killed by electrocution unless they choose the firing squad or lethal injection. But when Sigmon faced the choice last month, he says he couldn’t make an informed one. Citing potentially problematic lethal injections in past executions, he said officials didn’t disclose enough information to confirm that injection drugs aren’t “expired, sub-potent, or spoiled.”
Against that backdrop, he wants the justices to take up this legal question and to stay his execution in the meantime:
Does South Carolina’s compressed timeline and arbitrary denial of information necessary for a condemned prisoner to exercise his statutory right ‘never [to] be subjected to execution by a method he contends is more inhumane than another method that is available’ violate Due Process?
State officials can respond before the justices decide whether to grant a stay.
Sigmon’s execution is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET on Friday, and he has also sought clemency from South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Henry McMaster.
The Associated Press reported that the execution would proceed with Sigmon being strapped to a chair with “a target placed over his heart” as “three volunteers armed with rifles simultaneously fire bullets designed to shatter on impact with his chest.” An NPR report raised concerns about the shooting taking place indoors, citing experts who questioned whether it’s “safe for the workers who will shoot the prisoner and the people who will watch.”
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
