South Carolina’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that all three of the state’s methods to execute inmates who have been sentenced to death are constitutional.
In a reversal of a circuit court ruling, the five-justice court held in Owens v. Stirling that electrocution, firing squad and lethal injection do not violate the state’s constitution and are therefore legal.
Not all justices agreed with each part of the ruling. Chief Justice Beatty, who is set to retire on Wednesday, wrote: “I concur in part and dissent in part,” adding that he found the electric chair and firing squad are both cruel forms of punishment. Another justice, John Kittredge, said the firing squad “as a method of execution is ‘unusual’ and, therefore, unconstitutional.”
Wednesday’s ruling comes after four inmates brought a case in 2021 after the passage of a state law allowing the electric chair and firing squad, arguing that those are cruel and unusual forms of punishments.
In Justice John Few’s majority opinion, he said that the inmate’s choice to select which method is the state’s effort to “make the death penalty less inhumane while enabling the State to carry out its laws.” He added that inmates can elect to have the method they believe will cause the least pain.
The state has executed 43 inmates since the U.S. reinstated capital punishment in 1976, the Associated Press (AP) reported, with lethal injection as the most common execution method.
“South Carolina has 32 men on Death Row. 31 live in South Carolina. One lives on death row in California (he was sentenced to death in both states),” Chrysti Shain, director of communications for South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) told Newsweek in an email.
Shain said that the state’s Supreme Court issues orders of execution and “when/if the court issues an order, SCDC by law has to schedule an execution in four Fridays, so essentially a month. That schedule is set in law.”
The last execution in South Carolina was carried out over a decade ago in 2011.
On Wednesday, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster agreed with the highest court’s ruling.
“The Supreme Court has rightfully upheld the rule of law,” McMaster said in a statement. “This decision is another step in ensuring that lawful sentences can be duly enforced and the families and loved ones of the victims receive the closure and justice they have long awaited.”
South Carolina is one of 27 U.S. states that allows the death penalty. In 2024, inmates have been executed in five states: Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri, according to the non-profit Washington D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
