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March 19, 2022
South Carolina joins handful of states authorizing firing squad as execution method
As reported in this local article, "executions by a state-approved firing squad are now able to be carried out in South Carolina." Here is more:
The S.C. Department of Corrections informed the state’s Attorney General Alan Wilson Friday that it is now able to execute death row inmates using a three-person firing squad using live ammunition if an inmate chooses that method.
The Legislature passed a law in 2021 that makes the electric chair South Carolina’s primary method of execution, but gives inmates the option to choose death by firing squad or lethal injection if available. Lethal injection has been unavailable for years in South Carolina.
The executions will be carried out at the department’s Broad River Correctional Institution outside of downtown Columbia, after the agency spent about $53,600 on supplies and materials to make the changes and comply with state law.
To carry out the execution, the agency said the firing squad will stand behind a wall and use rifles. But the department did not specify what type of rifle or what kind of ammunition. All firing squad members will be volunteers. The rifles will not be visible to the witness room, and, unlike the electric chair, the witnesses will only be able to see the right side of the inmate’s profile. Witnesses will be separated from the chamber by bullet-resistant glass.
The inmate, wearing a prison-issued uniform, will be giving the opportunity to make a last statement and then will be strapped into the execution chair and a hood will be placed over their head. A “small aim point will be placed over his heart by a member of the execution team,” at which point the warden will read the execution order and the team will fire, the department said. When the inmate is declared dead and the curtain is moved, witnesses will be escorted out.
South Carolina has 35 inmates now on death row. The last execution was carried out in 2011. The state has been unable to carry out executions because it lacks the drugs necessary for the lethal injection method. In large part because of the delay, lawmakers added the firing squad option to the law.
South Carolina is now one of four states that offer the firing squad as an execution option, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The other states are Utah, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
March 19, 2022 at 11:03 AM | Permalink
Comments
At the risk of being gruesome, change my view: If we're going to execute people, firearms are the best method but should be targeted near the base of the skull to ensure instant unconsciousness from brain stem destruction. It is gory, but the business of killing people is gory and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Posted by: Jason | Mar 19, 2022 3:14:59 PM
I look forward to the day when the United States joins the rest of the First World (except Japan) abolishes the death penalty. Presently, I think 23 states have no death penalty. Once that number reaches 26 (a majority of the states), I expect someone to take a cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will find that evolving standards then mean that the death penalty violates the 8th Amendment and is unConstitutional. In my native Kentucky, the Commonwealth has executed only 5 people since 1955. There are presently only 26 people on Death Row in Kentucky; they have a much better chance of dying of disease or old age than they do of actually being executed in the Commonwealth. Two of the last 3 people executed in Kentucky withdrew their appeals and demanded to be executed. While public opinion surveys say that 67% of Kentuckians favor the death penalty in appropriate cases, things change when you put those people in a jury box and ask them to impose the death penalty. In 2009, there were 106 Death Qualified trials held in Kentucky, but the juries recommended death in 0 cases! I think the Death Penalty will finally get abolished in the next 10 years.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Mar 20, 2022 12:07:15 PM
Jim Gormley --
"I look forward to the day when the United States joins the rest of the First World (except Japan) abolishes the death penalty. Presently, I think 23 states have no death penalty. Once that number reaches 26 (a majority of the states), I expect someone to take a cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will find that evolving standards then mean that the death penalty violates the 8th Amendment and is unConstitutional."
Could you quote me the language in the Constitution that says "when the majority of states have no death penalty, the death penalty shall be deemed unconstitutional in all states"? For that matter, could you quote me the language in the Constitution that says "this Constitutional shall not be applied according to its text but according to what a temporary majority of the Supreme Court decides satisfies 'evolving standards of decency'"?
For that matter, why would the Court decide that 26 states have stepped away from the DP because it's morally indecent, as opposed to simply too expensive and too time-consuming (which are not the major arguments against it)?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 20, 2022 5:40:49 PM
Errata:
-- "...this Constitution shall not be applied..."
-- "...which are now the major arguments against it...
Sorry, I'm not proofreading carefully enough.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 20, 2022 9:02:00 PM
Bill - Jim doesn't need my support against your dogma but as war rages between Russia and Ukraine, I can't help but suggest that it seems if you had your way, everyone on death row, in all DP eligible States (and probably all that are not) would be brought to one place and be systematically pounded to dust by cruise missiles. Whether killing inmates by chemical injections, electric chair, bullets, cruise missiles or a nuke, the practice is or would be totally sick, against all notion of human rights, and definitely uncivilized as judged by both International norms (Saudi Arabia, China, Iran etc excepted) and those of close to half of all US States.
Posted by: Peter | Mar 21, 2022 7:00:27 AM
@Jim Gormley: With the current composition of SCOTUS, there is no chance it would declare the DP categorically unconstitutional. Even when the Court was more liberal, it never mustered five votes to abolish the DP entirely.
Of course, you are right that the DP has become insanely impractical. It is hugely expensive, takes years, and is applied in only a tiny fraction of cases. But quite a few states still have it, and I don't see them all changing their minds within the next 10 years.
Posted by: Marc Shepherd | Mar 21, 2022 7:18:29 AM
Any execution method that works and is relatively quick is fine by me.
Posted by: William C Jockusch | Mar 21, 2022 8:33:01 AM
The concept of "evolving standards of decency" applying to the 8th Amendment was first recognized in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), where the Court found it unConstitutional to revoke citizenship as punishment for a criminal conviction. Since then, the Supreme Court has cited Trop v. Dulles and "evolving standards of decency" in more than 50 cases. It has long been believed that once more than half of the 50 states do away with the death penalty, someone will take a case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Death Penalty is then unConstitutional based upon "evolving standards of decency". I still think that this will eventually happen. The death penalty is now just an expensive anachronism in many states, with only a handful of states executing many people. California has about 700 people on its death row, but hasn't actually executed anyone on 20 years. Yet California spends about $200 million per year on death row incarceration and attorneys' fees. It's just wasteful.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Mar 21, 2022 10:01:28 AM
Peter --
"I can't help but suggest that it seems if you had your way, everyone on death row, in all DP eligible States (and probably all that are not) would be brought to one place and be systematically pounded to dust by cruise missiles."
Welcome to the club who want to write my discussions for me by concocting straw men and then fretting, "Oh golly, that straw man is JUST SO AWFUL."
You see a lot of that in eighth grade debate tournaments, but by ninth grade it's generally gone.
"Whether killing inmates by chemical injections, electric chair, bullets, cruise missiles or a nuke, the practice is or would be totally sick, against all notion of human rights, and definitely uncivilized as judged by both International norms..."
I guess writing stuff like that makes you feel better, since there has to be some reason for it. But just in case you're interested, once Justice Breyer retires, there will not be a single Justice on the Court who thinks the DP is categorically cruel and unusual punishment.
Washington, Lincoln and FDR all not only supported but used the DP. If you think they were savages, go for it. And if you think a prison sentence regardless of length is proportional punishment for Tsarnaev, go for that too.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 21, 2022 3:06:08 PM
Jim Gormley --
"The concept of "evolving standards of decency" applying to the 8th Amendment was first recognized in Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958), where the Court found it unConstitutional to revoke citizenship as punishment for a criminal conviction."
Thank you for acknowledging that the "evolving standards" language is not in fact in the Constitution and is instead a judicial invention from about 170 years later. That was my main point. My other point was that society's moral standards are for the elected branches to decide, not the courts, which are there to say what the law is not what they think it should be.
"It's just wasteful."
The DP is expensive for sure. Whether it's wasteful is a different question. But assuming arguendo that it is, wasteful is not indecent.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 21, 2022 3:16:14 PM
The phrase "evolving standards of decency" comes in a plurality opinion that attracted only four votes at the time. With that said, the four Justices who signed the opinion disclaimed that they were inventing anything. They believed that it was what the Eighth Amendment had always meant.
Posted by: Marc Shepherd | Mar 21, 2022 4:08:28 PM
Marc Shepherd --
"With that said, the four Justices who signed the opinion disclaimed that they were inventing anything. They believed that it was what the Eighth Amendment had always meant."
Had always meant but the Framers were too low wattage or absent-minded to put it in the Constitution in express language? And this gets discovered 170 years later??
Somehow I'm just not buying that. One thing, but only one, that persuades me not to buy it is that the alleged "intent" of the Eighth Amendment just happens to coincide with the policy preferences of the four Justices. Amazing! Indeed, I don't think I ever heard of one of these "but-it's-what-they-MEANT" theories of constitutional interpretation when the (invisible in the text "real meaning") did not coincide with the personal preferences of the writing judge. If there is an instance like that, please let me know.
Liberals are well aware, and rightly so for the most part, of the need to check the authoritarian tendencies government can spawn. But one of the most important checks on the judicial branch of government and its own undisciplined tendencies is to insist that it confine its readings of the Constitution to what's actually written down. As Justice Scalia once wrote, the Constitution says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 21, 2022 7:22:23 PM
Peter --
One more thing. Now that you've designated those who disagree with your position on capital punishment as ghouls, barbarians, savages, etc., I was wondering if you could tell us in more specifics what punishment Tsarnaev should get, if any.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 22, 2022 8:09:18 AM
Bill - Al-Megrahi was found guilty in 2001 of mass murder re the Lockabie aircraft bombing over Scotland and jailed for life with a minimum term of 27 years. Of course the story didn't end there.
Posted by: Peter | Mar 22, 2022 10:28:02 AM
Peter --
Al-Megrahi was tried in a system that does not have the DP and therefore could not have received it in any event. He served 21 years of a life sentence before getting early release. Tsarnaev is a different matter. What punishment should Tsarnaev get if any?
Also, I noted before that Washington, Lincoln and FDR all not only supported but used capital punishment. Do you regard yourself as more morally astute than these men?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 22, 2022 2:50:15 PM
Tsarnaev is a different matter only because you choose to say it is. The death penalty is unnecessary for justice to prevail, full stop. Do I regard myself as more morally astute than Washington, Lincoln and FDR? In the context of today's reality, certainly I do. I'm in pretty good company too.
Posted by: Peter | Mar 22, 2022 6:02:49 PM
Peter --
"Tsarnaev is a different matter only because you choose to say it is."
No, it's a different matter because the killer was different, the victims were different, the state involvement was different, the legal system was different, etc., etc.
"The death penalty is unnecessary for justice to prevail, full stop."
That's a conclusion not an argument.
"Do I regard myself as more morally astute than Washington, Lincoln and FDR? In the context of today's reality, certainly I do."
I think the people murdered "in the context of today's reality" are just as dead, and I personally don't think you (or I) hold a candle to any of those three.
"I'm in pretty good company too."
In addition to the three I named, some other Presidents who supported the DP were Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton and Obama. A famous defense of the DP was written by John Stuart Mill, widely regarded as one of the most intelligent people of all time. But if you like your company better, go for it. Who would that be? Sister Perjean? AOC?
P.S. You still haven't said what if any punishment you think Tsarnaev should receive, but it would be enlightening to find out.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Mar 22, 2022 7:37:44 PM
