Option to die by firing squad awaits McMaster’s approval

(The Center Square) – A bill that would make a firing squad an option for execution in South Carolina is headed to Gov. Henry McMaster’s desk after it cleared the state Legislature before the legislative session ended.

Senate Bill 200 would allow death row inmates to choose the firing squad as an option 15 days before the execution, along with electrocution or lethal injection, if possible.

Lethal injection was the default form of execution, but the unavailability of the drugs needed to perform the procedure has delayed executions in the state.

“Each of these victims deserve justice and they deserve swift justice,” said Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown. “There are people in this world who are horrible, horrible people. … Ladies and gentleman, it is a scary, horrible thing. They deserve to die. They deserve to die.”

Goldfinch said the focus of the debate should be more on the victims instead of being focused solely on the inmates. He listed several death row inmates and the graphic details of the crimes they were convicted of committing during debate of the bill.

South Carolina has not executed a prisoner since 2011, but lawmakers said the focus of the bill was on three individuals who currently are on death row and out of appeals.

The state is one of nine that use the electric chair, and three other states allow a firing squad.

Senate Minority Leader Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, said he is not for the death penalty, but he did suggest this adjustment three years ago, saying his idea somehow has “become mainstream.”

“This whole discussion can get very emotional, and I understand that,” Hutto said. “But that is why we are supposed to sort of set that aside as we discuss policy.

“We’re not extracting revenge,” Hutto said. “We’re supposed to be determining the parameters of justice.”

Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, said he was a freshman senator in June 1977 when the body voted to reinstate the death penalty. He advocated for one of the discussed amendments, related to signatures from a defendant on a form, to be approved and the bill be sent back to the House.

The amendment ultimately was tabled.

“To be sitting in a courtroom and hear a judge sentence someone to death, I don’t care who you are, is an unbelievable feeling and emotion,” Setzler said. “But we need to be able to enact and execute the laws that we pass.

“If somebody can tell me or give me a reason why we need to do this today versus sitting across the table with three members of the House … and defend our position. I really don’t comprehend it.”

Sen. Greg Hembree, R-Horry, said it was not worth delaying the process more over what he described as a “meaningless signature form.”

“Those victims deserve that we can give them the justice that we promised them,” Hembree said.

Sen. Gerald Malloy, D-Darlington, offered several amendments to the bill that ultimately were tabled, including one that would prevent more additions to the list of execution options, including some methods he said were not relevant this century, including elephant stomping.

“What people don’t like is the optics of the firing squad,” Malloy said, citing a study that said “of the 34 firing squads since 1890 … there were zero botched with the firing squad.”

The Senate approved the House’s amended version of the bill Wednesday, 32-11, after the House approved the measure May 6.

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