Man on death row in South Carolina seeks postponement to get autopsy from last execution

A condemned man who is the next person scheduled to be put to death in South Carolina is again asking for his execution be postponed because his lawyers have not yet received the autopsy report from the last execution two weeks ago

The state Supreme Court rejected a similar request earlier this month by Brad Sigmon. But his attorneys said in a motion Friday that the situation has become more urgent because he faces a Feb. 21 deadline to decide whether to die by lethal injection, firing squad or electric chair.

Sigmon's execution is currently scheduled for March 7.

He was convicted in the 2001 baseball bat killings of his ex-girlfriend's parents at their home in Greenville County. They were in separate rooms, and Sigmon went back and forth as he beat them to death, investigators said.

If Sigmon refuses to choose an execution method, he would be electrocuted. His attorneys say he does not want to die in the electric chair, and he plans to pick next week between lethal injection and the firing squad.

But Sigmon is hesitant to choose lethal injection because witnesses to the three previous executions since the state moved to using a massive dose of pentobarbital have said that even though the condemned prisoners appeared to stop breathing and moving in a few minutes, they were not declared dead for at least 20 minutes.

The autopsy report has been released for only one of the executions: Richard Moore, who prison officials say was given two large doses of the sedative pentobarbital 11 minutes apart on Nov. 1.

A defense expert who reviewed the results said fluid found in Moore’s lungs probably made him feel like he was consciously drowning and suffocating during the 23 minutes from when the execution started to when he was pronounced dead.

But another anesthesiologist who reviewed the autopsy for the state said fluid is often found in the lungs after a lethal injection and witness accounts and other evidence gave no indication that Moore was conscious beyond 30 seconds after the sedative was first administered.

Prison officials have not said why Moore needed a second massive dose or whether that is part of their normal procedures, citing a 2023 law that keeps secret the providers of lethal injection drugs, the identities of members of execution teams and the procedures used.

In a sworn statement issued after an execution date is set, Corrections Director Bryan Stirling certifies that each method is available, including saying, “lethal injection is available via a single dose of pentobarbital.”

Sigmon’s lawyers have not yet seen the autopsy report on Marion Bowman, who was executed by lethal injection Jan. 31. There was no autopsy after the execution of Freddie Owens at his request, due to religious reasons.

Sigmon's lawyers are asking for more information about the lethal injection drug — a request rejected before the previous three executions. They also want his date postponed until they can get the autopsy results.

South Carolina went 13 years between executions before restarting them last year after passing the shield law. The state Supreme Court agreed to set executions at least five weeks apart to allow time for prison officials to prepare and for last-minute legal challenges.

Sigmon's lawyers, who also represent others awaiting the death chamber, want that extended to 13 weeks so they can fully review previous autopsies and other reports.

Sigmon, 67, is older than any of the 46 people who have been put to death in South Carolina since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.

In the early 2000s, the state was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Nine states have put more inmates to death. But since the unintentional pause, the death row population has dwindled to 29 currently, compared with 63 in early 2011.

About 20 have been taken off death row and received different sentences after successful appeals, while others have died of natural causes.

In 2001, after killing the couple, Sigmon kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, but she escaped from his car. He shot at her as she ran but missed, according to prosecutors.

“I couldn’t have her, I wasn’t going to let anybody else have her,” he said in a confession.

At his death penalty trial in 2002, Sigmon spoke to the jury before they deliberated his fate.

“Do I deserve to die? I probably do,” he said. “I don’t want to die. It would kill my mom and my brothers and my sisters and my children.”

Source: independent.co.uk, Jeffery Collins, February 14, 2025

_____________________________________________________________________

Twitter/X | Instagram | Telegram | Contact Us

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

— Oscar Wilde

Comments

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.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog