Execution by firing squad in the United States

Executions in various US states continue to be carried out using lethal injection, nitrogen gas asphyxiation, firing squad and electric chair.

According to CNN, the state of South Carolina executed Brad Sigmon, a 67-year-old prisoner, by firing squad. Sigmon had rejected two methods of lethal injection and the electric chair to carry out his death sentence.

His death was announced at 18:08 local time on Friday; Sigmon is the oldest person to be executed in the state of South Carolina. The US Supreme Court refused to stay the execution of Sigmon.

Sigmon's execution was carried out at Broad River Prison in South Carolina, where all executions in the state are carried out.

Sigmon's lawyer, who had previously stressed his client's mental illness and announced this in court, announced after the execution that the method was brutal; he said that his client had no other choice, saying: Three executions by lethal injection in the state of South Carolina had led to the agonizing death of inmates.

The execution, which took place on Friday, was the first use of a firing squad in the United States since 2010 and the fourth since the method was resumed in 1976.

According to the US Death Penalty Information Center (DPI), more than 1,600 executions have been carried out in the United States since the 1970s, most of them by lethal injection.

More than 160 executions were carried out by electrocution and 15 by gassing. Since 1977, three other prisoners have been executed by firing squad, all in Utah. The last execution in the state was carried out in 2010.

Five US states allow executions by firing squad: Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah. In Mississippi and Oklahoma, the firing squad option is allowed if nitrogen hypoxia, lethal injection and electrocution are not available.

Idaho is the only state in the US to allow firing squad as its primary form of execution after a bill passed the state legislature this week.

In 2021, South Carolina passed a law allowing executions by firing squad but naming the electric chair as the state's primary means of execution; the law would allow death row inmates to choose between a firing squad or lethal injection, if available.

The change came as states across the country faced obstacles in finding the drugs needed to carry out the lethal injection, which led to many executions being halted at the time.

Under South Carolina law, a prisoner must choose their method of execution in writing two weeks before their scheduled death. South Carolina has 28 other inmates on death row, according to state records.