South Carolina’s Planned Firing Squad Executions Raise Complicated Questions About the Future of the Death Penalty – By Madeleine Carlisle (TIME) / April 26, 2022
On March 18, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced that the $53,600 renovation of its death chamber was complete.
For prisoners on death row who choose to face the firing squad, the state installed a metal chair with restraints for the ankles, legs, chest, arms, and head. New protocols say the prisoner will be strapped into the chair with a hood over his head, and a small aim point placed over his heart. The three-person execution team will stand behind a wall fifteen feet away, pointing their rifles through a rectangular opening, aiming with live ammunition. The warden will read the order. The team will fire. Witnesses can watch the grim proceedings behind bullet-resistant glass. Once a doctor declares the prisoner dead, the viewers will be escorted out.
Roughly a year ago, Republican Governor Henry McMaster signed a law requiring condemned prisoners to choose how they’d like to die. Their options are firing squad or electric chair, because the state says it cannot procure lethal injection drugs. Richard Moore, 57, was the first death row prisoner to be given this macabre choice earlier this month. He picked the firing squad, while insisting that both choices before him are unconstitutional. He was scheduled to die on April 29, but his legal has team asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to delay his execution until a state court can rule on whether either method violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They’ve also asked for a delay so the U.S. Supreme Court can review whether Moore’s sentence is disproportionate compared to similar crimes.
CONTINUE > https://time.com/6170814/south-carolina-firing-squad-richard-moore-death-penalty/
