A man convicted of double murder was executed by a shot of shooting on Friday (7), the first execution of this type in the United States since 2010, according to the South Carolina Corrections Department.
Brad Sigmon, 67, was convicted of kidnapping his ex-girlfriend and beating her parents to death in 2001. He was declared dead by a doctor at 6:08 pm, localities said at a news conference on Friday.
Sigmon’s execution by the South Carolina Corrections Department on Friday is the fourth execution by a US shooting platoon since the death penalty was restored in 1976, according to the death penalty information center.
Sigmon chose the shot platoon instead of the other two execution methods approved by South Carolina – lethal injection or electric chair.
The detainee’s lawyers said he faced a “impossible” choice among the “barbaric” methods used by the state for execution.
Execution by flap of shooting recently became an option in the state for prisoners to choose instead of the electric chair.
Witnesses, such as reporters and lawyers, sit behind bulletproof glass and see the prisoner’s right profile, according to the South Carolina Corrections Department. Rifles and the shot platoon are not visible to witnesses.
How executions work by shot platoon
In 2022, the South Carolina Corrections Department detailed the room configuration and the protocols of how a throttle execution would be performed.
The rifles used by the three -member shooting platoon will not be visible to witnesses, the department reported at the time. All three rifles will be loaded with real ammunition.
“It is believed that the flap of shooting almost instantaneous unconsciousness and death by exsinguishing bleeding occurs shortly thereafter,” said Dr. Jonathan Groner, emeritus professor of clinical surgery at the Faculty of Medicine at OHIO State University, to CNN On Sunday.
“The three or four performers firing large -heart -caliber bullets would instantly interrupt blood flow to the brain, which, like a cardiac arrest, causes rapid loss of brain function,” he added.
According to state protocols, Sigmon will wear the uniform provided by the prison and will be tied to a chair inside the death chamber.
“A hood will be placed on your head. A small aiming point will be placed on your heart by a member of the execution team, ”according to the protocol summary provided by the DOC.
The three executors are employees of the correction department and offered to be part of the team, said Chrysti Shain, department spokesman, CNN .
The shooting platoon will throw approximately 4.5 meters away.
Witnesses will see the profile on the right side of the convicted prisoner, according to the DOC.
Each executors will once again shoot with rifles using Winchester Tap Urban .308a bullets.
The bullet provides rapid expansion and fragmentation, Shain added.
After the shots, the prisoner will be examined by a doctor.
Once declared dead, a curtain will be closed and the escorted witnesses out, according to the protocol.
History of Execution by Platoon of Fuzing
More than 1,600 executions have occurred in the United States since the 1970s, and the vast majority were carried out by lethal injection, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI), a non -profit organization for execution data data.
More than 160 prisoners died by electrocussion and 15 by gas, according to group data.
Only three other prisoners have been executed by a shot platoon since 1977, all of them in Utah.
The last throttle execution was Ronnie Gardner, who chose the method in June 2010.
Utah uses a five -member shooting platoon, according to the State Department of Corrections.
Armed with 30 -shot 30 -caliber rifles, the five gunmen, who are not Doc employees, are approximately 6 to 7 meters away from the prisoner. One of the rifles is loaded with party bullets, the department added.
Five States – Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah allow execution by shot platoon, according to DPI.
In Mississippi and Oklahoma, the option for a shot platoon is available “if nitrogen hypoxia, lethal injection and electrocussion are considered unconstitutional or” otherwise unavailable “, they say.
Idaho can become the only state that allows the shooting platoon as its main form of execution, after a bill approved by the state legislature this week.
The bill goes to the table of republican governor Brad Little for his signature. Currently, the state allows the throttle execution as a backup method if drugs for lethal injection are not available.
In 2021, South Carolina approved a law allowing the execution by the state of shifting in the state, but appointed the electric chair as the main means of execution of the state. The law allows prisoners to choose flap or lethal injection if available. The change was made when states across the country found barriers to find the drugs needed for lethal injection, which caused many to stop executions at the time.
In South Carolina, the prisoner should opt for his written execution method, two weeks before his scheduled death, according to DPI. In Utah, if a person was sentenced to death before May 3, 2004, he could choose the shooting platoon as an execution option. The method can also be authorized in the state “if lethal injecting drugs are not available,” the group says.
“States are looking for a way to perform executions that seem to be as peaceful as possible, but they are not,” Robert Dunham told Death Penalty Policy Project to CNN .
“And when they can’t do that if they are desperate to perform, they will make a hole in a prisoner with rifles to perform them. This takes the death penalty optically to a new level, because capital penalty has always been brutal. But when we resort to visibly brutal methods, it can have a greater impact and accelerate public opinion away from the death penalty. ”
South Carolina has 28 other prisoners in the death corridor, according to state records.
This content was originally published in Man has been executed by the 1st time in the US since 2010 on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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