How SC's Firing Squad Execution Will Happen

When a South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend's parents with a baseball bat steps into the death row chamber Friday night, it won't be lethal injection or electrocution that ends his life. It will be three people holding rifles about 15 feet away who will complete his punishment in what will be the United States' first firing squad execution in 15 years, reports the AP. Some 46 prisoners have been executed by lethal injection and electrocution in South Carolina since 1985. Brad Sigmon's execution will be the first by firing squad. Just three inmates—in Utah in 1977, 1996, and 2010—have faced a firing squad in the US since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

The 67-year-old is being executed for the 2001 baseball bat killings of his ex-girlfriend's parents at their home in Greenville County. He then kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, but she escaped from his car. He shot at her as she ran but missed, according to prosecutors. Reporters, family members of Sigmon's victims, and his lawyer will view the execution inside the same building used for all executions over the past 35 years, although prison officials say the glass separating the witness room from the death chamber is now bulletproof. Death row inmates in South Carolina are housed in a building adjacent to the death chamber at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

Just before 6pm, the warden will ask Gov. Henry McMaster by phone if he is granting clemency and the Attorney General's Office if there are any legal blocks to the execution. If both answers are no, Sigmon will enter the death chamber and will be strapped into a metal chair and the curtain to the witness room will open. His lawyer or a prison official can read his final statement if he wishes. A hood will be placed on his head. A target, positioned by a medical official, will be over his heart. Fifteen feet away, three state Corrections Department volunteers with rifles will fire live ammunition from an opening in a wall the witnesses can't see into. Not much is known about the people who will fire the rifles. Prison officials said they have "completed all required training." (More death penalty stories.)