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Friday, March 7, 2025
On Friday, the US state of South Carolina moved forward with an execution.
Convicted murderer Brad Sigmon, 67, was expected to be executed by firing squad Friday at the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC). It was to be the first legitimate execution by firing squad in the US in over fifteen years.
Sigmon was convicted of murdering his ex-partner’s parents with a baseball bat in 2001.
Sigmon voluntarily chose to be executed via firing squad as opposed to electric chair or lethal injection, which were also offered to him as options. He had expressed skepticism regarding the “effectiveness” of the latter methods.[Source] Sigmon’s lawyer Gerald “Bo” King told AP News, “[The electric chair would] burn and cook him alive, but the alternative is just as monstrous. If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September — three men Brad knew and cared for — who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than twenty minutes. He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can.”[Source]
Firearms experts expressed concerns regarding the safety of the execution hall, dubbed the “death chamber,” for onlookers and executioners. They were worried that the bullets would richochet off of the prison’s “bullet-resistant” walls and injure people.
