South Carolina lawmakers voted this week to use firing squads as a way to perform executions to bypass a loophole in which death row inmates were able to extend their lives because of shortages for drugs needed for lethal injections.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of state senators voted in favor of introducing death by firing squad, which was proposed as an amendment to an execution bill that would make the electric chair the only alternative to lethal injection. The Senate voted to approve the bill 32-11, with several Democrats joining Republicans on the proposal, though other Democrats also opposed it over their disagreement with the death penalty.
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South Carolina has been unable to carry out executions because its supply of lethal injection drugs has expired, and it has been unable to buy more with pharmaceutical companies clamping down on their use for capital punishment. Under current law, inmates can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection but often choose the latter since it currently cannot be done due to the lack of drugs.
The Senate bill will keep lethal injection as an execution method if the drugs are available but would require prison officials to use the electric chair if they are not available. But an inmate would also be able to choose death by firing squad if he or she wants.
The state House is considering a similar bill to use electrocution if lethal injection is not available, but that version lacks the firing squad amendment. Still, with the Senate legislation heading to the GOP-led House, lawmakers in that chamber could consider that version.
Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, welcomed the legislation, which would restart executions in South Carolina in almost a decade, telling CBS News he would “proudly” sign it into law.
The lack of drugs for lethal injection has delayed two scheduled executions, and a third one is looming. Since the last execution was carried out by lethal injection in 2011, South Carolina’s death row dropped from 60 inmates to 37 because of natural deaths and prisoners winning appeals to resentence them to life without parole, according to the Associated Press.
If South Carolina adds a firing squad as a means of execution, it would become the fourth state to have it alongside Utah, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. It is one of nine states that maintains an electric chair.
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Some Democrats who opposed the bill cited stark racial disparities on who gets sent to death row. According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, 208 of the 282 people who have been executed in the state were black.
On the campaign trail, President Biden said he would work to abolish the federal death penalty once he is in office, citing his longtime opposition to inmate executions.
