USA | South Carolina makes death by firing squad an option for death row inmates

South Carolina senators Tuesday added a firing squad to the list of execution alternatives if the state can't put condemned inmates to death by lethal injection.

The state senate approved the bill on a key 32-11 vote with several Democrats joining Republicans in the proposal that would allow South Carolina to restart executions after nearly 10 years.

The state can't put anyone to death right now because its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and it has not been able to buy any more.

Currently, inmates on death row can choose between the electric chair and lethal injection, and since the drugs are not available, they pick the method that can't be used.

Firing squad allowed in 3 other states

The senate bill keeps lethal injection as an option if the state has the drugs, but requires prison officials to use the electric chair if it is not. An inmate could choose a firing squad if they prefer.

The house is considering a similar bill without the firing squad option, but it could also consider the senate version after a procedural vote by senators finalizes the bill later this week.

South Carolina began to use the electric chair in 1912 after taking over the death penalty from counties, which usually used hanging.

It is just one of nine states that maintains an electric chair. It would become just the fourth state to allow a firing squad along with Utah, Oklahoma and Mississippi, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster asked lawmakers to give him any way to restart executions since a few inmates have exhausted their appeals but their death sentences can't be carried out.

A Republican and a Democrat, both former prosecutors, proposed adding the firing squad.

Executions should be 'humane,' says senator

The Democratic former prosecutor said it is evident in a Republican dominated state like South Carolina, where the Republicans gained extra seats in November, that the death penalty can't be abolished as Virginia did last month.

"The death penalty is going to stay the law here for a while. If it is going to remain, it ought to be humane," said state Sen. Dick Harpootlian. He said hanging is brutal and often leads to decapitation and in electrocution, the condemned "are burned to death."

Since the last execution was carried out in May 2011, South Carolina's death row has dropped from about 60 inmates to 37 as of now. This is due to natural deaths and prisoners winning appeals and being resentenced to life without parole. Prosecutors have sent just three new inmates to death row in the past decade.

The Republican former prosecutor, Sen. Greg Hembree, said Tuesday was not the time to debate whether the death penalty was right or wrong.

But several Democrats said the moral aspect of putting someone to death could not be removed from discussions over the method.

They also asked senators how they could justify having a debate about putting people to death this week when last month they passed a bill outlawing most abortions in South Carolina, which is now tied up in court.

Democratic Sen. Kevin Johnson brought up George Stinney, the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century.

Stinney was 14 when he was sent to the electric chair after a one-day trial in 1944 for killing two white girls. A judge threw out the Black teen's conviction in 2014. Newspaper stories reported that witnesses said the straps to keep him in the electric chair didn't fit around his small frame.

Johnson drives by a memorial to Stinney each time he comes to Columbia from Manning.

"You think it was bad to abort a baby? Think how much worse it is to kill a person who, when all is said and done, is innocent," Johnson said.

Source: cbc.ca, The Associated Press, March 2, 2021

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

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