South Carolina death row inmate to be executed by firing squad, first in US in 15 years

A man convicted of a double murder is scheduled to be executed in South Carolina Friday night by firing squad - a method that has not been used in the United States in almost 15 years, and never in the state.

A man convicted of a double murder is scheduled to be executed in South Carolina Friday night by firing squad - a method that has not been used in the United States in almost 15 years, and never in the state. Brad Sigmon, 67, chose firing squad over the two other state-approved methods of execution, lethal injection or the electric chair. Sigmon was convicted of the 2001 bludgeoning deaths of his ex-girlfriend’s parents. After their murders, Sigmon kidnapped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, but she managed to escape. Attorneys for Sigmon said he faced an “impossible” choice between “barbaric” methods used by the state for execution. “Unless he elected lethal injection or the firing squad, he would die in South Carolina’s ancient electric chair, which would burn and cook him alive. But the alternative is just as monstrous,” Gerald “Bo” King, one of Sigmon’s attorneys, said in a news release after his client told the state his preferred method. “If he chose lethal injection, he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September,” King added.