South Carolina executed a convicted murderer by firing a squad on Friday night for its first such execution in the United States since 2010.
Inmate Brad Sigmon, 67, was declared dead at 6:08 p.m. after the shooting squad fired three bullets at a target placed in his heart, the state Department of Corrections said.
The judge ordered Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents with a baseball bat in 2001, to choose between three executions: fatal injection, electric shock, or firing squads. His lawyer, Gerald King, said Sigmon chose to be shot because he was concerned about the fatal injection process in South Carolina.
Three reporters who witnessed the execution said Sigmon took several deep breaths before it was fired. After he was shot, his chest rose, collapsed about twice, his arms stiffened.
Sigmon was the first prisoner in South Carolina history to be killed in that way. Polls show that while the majority of Americans support the death penalty, many view the fire forces as an old-fashioned form of justice. However, several states recently legalized shooting forces as a method of execution, as fatal injections were difficult to obtain and sometimes resulted in failed executions.
Utah was previously the only state that used the fire squad in modern times. I did that in 2010, 1996, and 1977.
Sigmon was executed in the death room at the Broad River Correctional Facility in the provincial capital of Columbia. He was tied to a metal chair in the corner of the room and sat 15 feet away from the wall with a rectangular opening. Behind the wall was a three-man shooting squad, facing Mr. Sigmon throughout the opening.
The witness was sitting in a chair along the wall of the room behind the glass that would survive bullets. They could see the prisoners, but the rifles of the fire squad passing through the opening were not.
In a final statement by his lawyer, Sigmon said he hopes to be “one of my love and calling for my fellow Christians to help end the death penalty.”
“The New Testament God does not give a man the authority to kill another person,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Sigmon wore a black jumpsuit and his mouth was covered. He was able to move his head slightly, the witness said, and he seemed to tilt it into the witness's room before nodding to his lawyer, Mr. King, and exchange words with him. Witnesses said it was not clear what was said.
The hood was then placed on Mr. Sigmon's head. There was no countdown before the shots were fired at the same time.
The group of witnesses also included three members of the victim's family and the Rev. Hilary Taylor, Mr. Sigmon's spiritual advisor.
Sigmon's lawyers had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case and issue an enforcement stay, but the court refused to grant it. Sigmon also sought generosity from Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, which was rejected by McMaster. McMaster has not given death row inmates generosity since the state reopened last year.
Shortly before the execution, dozens of protesters held signs outside the correctional facility that read “You should not kill” and “All life is precious.”
Taylor said Sigmon became an inspiring reader of the Bible and served as an informal pastor for other prisoners. She added that he chose to share with his last meal, a large bucket of KFC fried chicken, his fellow inmates.
Little is known about the members of the Shooting Squad due to the Shield Act passed in 2023. According to a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, they train every month all year round. A 2022 news release on the renovation to the Death Room said the shooting squad was made up of staff from the department who volunteered to participate. They film ammunition that is often used in police rifles.
Three other states, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Idaho, allow shooting units to be used as a secondary method of execution only if a deadly injection drug is not obtained. In Idaho, state senators recently passed a bill that would make death a major way by firing squads into first squads.
The shooting squad became legal in South Carolina in 2021. This became legal after the state passed a law allowing electric chairs to be fired as an option for deaths or deaths by fire forces. The inmate sued the state, claiming that both methods were cruel, physical or unusual punishment prohibited by the national constitution.
The South Carolina Supreme Court, ruled by Republican appointees, wrote last year that both methods were legal and that they were not considered cruel or unusual because prisoners could choose their own methods.
Since that sentencing, the state Department of Corrections has now been executed with four people, three of whom have chosen to be killed by a fatal injection. However, King said Sigmon chose the shooting squad due to concerns about the process at Pentobarbital, a South Carolina lethal injection drug.
King in court insisted that the Department of Corrections “want to know with confidence that it will work as intended.” South Carolina has not published fatal injection protocols.
A department spokesperson said last month that the agency took over all the information on drugs in the lawsuit, and that it was “swearing to effectiveness.”
Lindsey Van, executive director of Nonprofit Justice 360, represented two state inmates, Richard B. Moore and Marion Bowman Jr.
Van said in both cases the second dose of pentobarbital was administered 10 minutes after the first case, and in either case he has not died more than 20 minutes after surgery began. (Moore initially chose to be executed by a shooting squad, but changed his mind after the state procured a deadly injection drug.)
King said Sigmon “considering what he knows about electric chairs and what he doesn't know about deadly injections, the shooting squad remains.” King said his clients are “a mixture of fear and frustration.”
“From the choice to the method itself, everything about this wildly nationally approved atrocities is cruel,” King said in a statement.
Sigmon's lawyers say he suffers from inherited mental illness and childhood brain damage. Those factors, they alleged, contributed to the murder of his ex-girlfriend's parents, David and Gladys Lalke. After he killed them, Mr. Sigmon attempted to lure his ex-girlfriend.
Ricky Sims, the victim's grandson, told Greenville News that Sigmon must pay for what he did. “He took two people away who would have done something for his family,” he said.
