Executions by electric chair or firing squad, according to a US court, are unlawful and constitute “torture.”
Lawyers for four South Carolina inmates who filed a lawsuit against the state contended that prisoners would suffer excruciating agony whether their bodies were “cooked” by electricity or when their hearts were halted by a marksman’s bullet – presuming they were on target.
Judge Jocelyn Newman decided that the state’s newly formed firing squad, as well as its usage of the electric chair, must cease and desist.
Republican Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina stated he planned to challenge her ruling.
From 1995 through 2011, when the state’s last execution occurred, South Carolina used lethal injections to execute 36 convicts.
However, when the state’s stock of fatal injection pharmaceuticals ran out in 2013, there was an involuntary halt in executions due to pharmaceutical firms’ unwillingness to sell the state more
Condemned convicts theoretically had a choice between injection and electrocution, which meant that choosing the latter would effectively render the state unable to carry out the punishment.
