South Carolina ponders death by firing squad, electric chair

Frustrated by the lack of drugs available to carry out lethal injections in their state, South Carolina lawmakers are on the cusp of a controversial solution: forcing death row inmates to face the electric chair or firing squad when lethal injection is not possible.

A bill proposing that change, approved by the state House this week, appears almost certain to become law in the next few days, and is being lauded by Republicans, including Gov. Henry McMaster, who have been vexed by pharmaceutical companies’ refusal to sell states the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections. The lack of drugs, they say, is a key reason South Carolina has not executed anyone in 10 years.

Opponents are appalled by the bill, which would make South Carolina the fourth state — along with Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah — in which death by firing squad is an option for the condemned.

“Why would South Carolina move toward the firing squad when they also do that in North Korea?” state Rep. Justin Bamberg, a Democrat, said in an interview Thursday. The firing squad measure was proposed by state Sen. Richard A. Harpootlian, who argued that it was more humane than the electric chair. “It’s an extraordinarily gruesome, horrendous process,” Harpootlian said, “where they essentially catch on fire and don’t die immediately.”

Three inmates in the U.S. have died by firing squad since the 1970s, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.