South Carolina man set to become the first executed by firing squad in 15 Years

Brad Sig­mon, a 67-year-old con­vict­ed mur­der­er, is set to be exe­cut­ed by fir­ing squad, mark­ing the first time this method has been used in the U.S. in near­ly 15 years. Unless he receives a last-minute reprieve from the gov­er­nor or the U.S. Supreme Court, Sig­mon will be the fourth per­son exe­cut­ed by fir­ing squad since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in the U.S. 49 years ago.

South Car­oli­na Exe­cutes Inmate by Fir­ing Squad for the First Time in 15 Years

COLUMBIA, South Car­oli­na — In a his­toric and con­tro­ver­sial move, South Car­oli­na car­ried out its first exe­cu­tion by fir­ing squad in 15 years. Brad Sig­mon, a 67-year-old con­vict­ed mur­der­er, was exe­cut­ed on Fri­day at 6:08 p.m. after being shot by three vol­un­teer prison employ­ees using rifles loaded with live ammu­ni­tion.

A Brutal Crime and Its Consequences

Sig­mon was sen­tenced to death for the 2001 mur­ders of his ex-girlfriend’s par­ents in Greenville Coun­ty. He bru­tal­ly killed them with a base­ball bat in a failed attempt to kid­nap their daugh­ter. His plan, accord­ing to police reports, was to take her on a roman­tic get­away before killing both her and him­self.

Choice of Execution Method

Sigmon’s attor­neys stat­ed that he opt­ed for the fir­ing squad over the elec­tric chair, fear­ing it would “cook him alive.” He also opposed lethal injec­tion, argu­ing that the secre­tive process in South Car­oli­na could cause extreme suf­fer­ing, poten­tial­ly drown­ing him as pen­to­bar­bi­tal rushed into his lungs.

His final appeal to the state Supreme Court to halt the exe­cu­tion was denied on Thurs­day, leav­ing him no fur­ther legal recourse.

The Execution Process

Dressed in a black jump­suit, Sig­mon was hood­ed and had a white tar­get with a red bulls­eye placed over his chest. The exe­cu­tion took place in the state’s death cham­ber, where he was seat­ed 15 feet away from the riflemen—equivalent to the free-throw dis­tance on a bas­ket­ball court. The state’s unused elec­tric chair remained vis­i­ble in the room, and the gur­ney used for lethal injec­tions had been removed.

Three vol­un­teer exe­cu­tion­ers fired simul­ta­ne­ous­ly through des­ig­nat­ed open­ings in a wall, hid­den from the view of about a dozen wit­ness­es sep­a­rat­ed by bul­let-resis­tant glass. Sig­mon made heavy breaths in the moments before the shots were fired. Upon impact, his arms tensed, the tar­get was blast­ed off his chest, and vis­i­ble wounds began to form. With­in min­utes, a doc­tor entered the cham­ber, exam­ined him for 90 sec­onds, and pro­nounced him dead.

Firing Squad: A Controversial Execution Method

The fir­ing squad has a long and grim his­to­ry, both in the U.S. and glob­al­ly. It has been used for mil­i­tary dis­ci­pline, fron­tier jus­tice, and polit­i­cal repres­sion in regimes such as the for­mer Sovi­et Union and Nazi Ger­many. Since 1977, only three oth­er pris­on­ers in the U.S. have been exe­cut­ed by this method, all in Utah, the most recent being Ron­nie Lee Gard­ner in 2010.

Ralph Men­zies, anoth­er Utah inmate, could be the next to face a fir­ing squad, pend­ing a court rul­ing on whether his demen­tia makes him unfit for exe­cu­tion.

Public Reaction and Legal Challenges

Before the exe­cu­tion, pro­test­ers gath­ered out­side the prison hold­ing signs with mes­sages like “All life is pre­cious” and “Exe­cute jus­tice, not peo­ple.” Sigmon’s legal team and sup­port­ers had plead­ed with Gov­er­nor Hen­ry McMas­ter to com­mute his sen­tence to life in prison, cit­ing his mod­el behav­ior behind bars and severe men­tal ill­ness at the time of the crime. How­ev­er, McMas­ter refused, con­tin­u­ing South Carolina’s long-stand­ing tra­di­tion of nev­er grant­i­ng clemen­cy in death penal­ty cas­es.

Since 1976, South Car­oli­na has exe­cut­ed 46 inmates—seven by elec­tro­cu­tion and 39 by lethal injec­tion. The state was once among the most active in car­ry­ing out death sen­tences, aver­ag­ing three exe­cu­tions per year in the ear­ly 2000s. How­ev­er, exe­cu­tions were paused for 13 years due to dif­fi­cul­ties obtain­ing lethal injec­tion drugs.

The Future of the Death Penalty in South Carolina

The state Supreme Court recent­ly autho­rized the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions, sched­ul­ing one every five weeks mov­ing for­ward. Three inmates—Freddie Owens, Richard Moore, and Mar­i­on Bow­man Jr.—have already been exe­cut­ed since the resump­tion, with more await­ing their fate.

Cur­rent­ly, South Car­oli­na has 28 inmates on death row, with two hav­ing exhaust­ed their appeals and like­ly to be exe­cut­ed in the com­ing months. Over the past decade, the num­ber of death row inmates has declined sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with many hav­ing their sen­tences reduced to life or dying in prison.

As the debate over cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment con­tin­ues, the case of Brad Sig­mon marks a piv­otal moment in the his­to­ry of the U.S. jus­tice sys­tem, reignit­ing dis­cus­sions on the ethics and effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty.