South Carolina institutes firing squad executions
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - South Carolina now has the means to facilitate executions by firing squad, officials said Friday, making it one of few states where it is lawful to carry out a death sentence in that manner.
The state Department of Corrections said it alerted the Attorney General's office that it has developed protocols and completed renovations at a correctional facility in Columbia, the capital city, making way for death row inmates to choose to be shot by a three-man squad among three possible methods of execution.
A state law passed in May 2021 authorized the death penalty policy changes, giving condemned persons the option to choose death by rifles or lethal injection when available. It also made the electric chair the state's primary mode of execution.
South Carolina joins Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah in allowing firing squad executions. Those states use lethal injection as their primary method. Three executions, all in Utah, have been carried out by firing squad since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/south-carolina-institutes-firing-squad-executions/ar-AAVfzh0
riversedge
(69,721 posts)LonePirate
(13,386 posts)tonekat
(1,805 posts)Will apply to be on the squad.
calimary
(80,693 posts)They probably are eager to see blood.
AZLD4Candidate
(5,558 posts)Why not use the guillotine? it is perfect and it's lightning fast.
NullTuples
(6,017 posts)electric_blue68
(14,600 posts)paleotn
(17,778 posts)forgotmylogin
(7,496 posts)Over the past few years, a shortage of sodium thiopental, a key drug in lethal injections, has left states scrambling for alternative ways to execute prisoners and has inspired some to shroud the process in secrecy.
The shortage began around 2010, when drug suppliers around the world, including in the US, began refusing to supply drugs for the injections out of either opposition to the death penalty or concerns about having their products associated with executions.
"The drugs were being cut off right and left," Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert at Fordham University, said.
"THE DRUGS WERE BEING CUT OFF RIGHT AND LEFT"
Hospira Inc. was the sole US supplier of sodium thiopental, according to Denno. But Hospira stopped producing the drug in 2011, after struggling to procure active ingredients for its production and fielding legal threats from authorities in Italy, where the death penalty is vehemently opposed.
While I don't agree with the death penalty, I have read stories that some condemned criminals have requested a firing squad, perhaps due to aversion to needles, or belief that being shot by a marksman might be a quicker execution.
https://www.news9.com/story/61dee04958cbdf0be52e01c2/2-death-row-inmates-request-firing-squad-
jmowreader
(50,451 posts)There are LOTS of lethal injection patients - yes, thats what the people who are killed that way are called - who have woken up in the middle of one of the other two drugs being administered. The second drug makes you stop breathing so youre freaking out the whole time, and the third is like your veins have been set on fire. By comparison, when youre executed by firing squad you die very quickly - if the riflemen are good, you die instantly.
Violent executions are also an impediment to awarding death sentences. The lethal injection can be justified in a jurys mind by them thinking its like putting an old dog to sleep. Shootings, hangings and guillotinings require serious reflection on the part of the sentencing jury.
Akoto
(4,261 posts)You've already cited the known issues with lethal injection.
What if you choose a firing squad and they shoot you, but you end up not dying? I'd imagine you'd be in a whole lot of agony before you were gone. It's hypothetically possible, so I count it as a problem. What happens in that case, does someone just shoot you in the head and end it? If so, why not do that from the start? It's more certain than a row of riflemen, and we don't send ourselves back to conducting formalized ritual murder.
I always saw putting someone in a chair and frying them with electricity as barbaric, so not much to say there.
Of course, I'm not pro-death penalty, so I guess I'd object to everything.
jmowreader
(50,451 posts)Akoto
(4,261 posts)Ocelot II
(115,276 posts)so they might as well make it actually bloody.
Traildogbob
(8,576 posts)Lindsay Graham????
Samrob
(4,298 posts)PatrickforB
(14,516 posts)forgive me in advance. If I screwed up bad enough to get the death sentence, I believe that a firing squad would be MUCH preferable to either the electric chair or lethal injection.
That said, I have always generally favored the death penalty. For people like Charlie Manson, Jeff Dahmer, Gacy, Ted Bundy - if it is certain they committed the heinous crime, and the DA has more than merely circumstantial evidence, but DNA or something like that, then yeah, execute them.
I've always obeyed the law. In fact I am arrow straight in terms of being law abiding, because I was told very early on that I'd better NEVER BRING SHAME on my family. Period. Never. Ever. So I'm the kind of guy that will drive back to the store and give it back if I get too much change and so on.
That said, when contemplating prison, if I were given the choice between life without parole, and death by firing squad, I would opt for the latter, because I would be horrified by spending the rest of my life in a cage. When they kill you, you move...on. Either it's 'boom, boom, out go the lights,' like in the song, or you go somewhere else. The concept of oblivion is a comfort, because at age 63, I've had both good times and really bad ones. I have suffered prodigiously during substantial parts of this life, as a matter of fact. Enough that I don't love life no matter what. Sorry, but I don't. Quality is that important, and if it ain't there, I'm ready to move on.
And, speaking of that, if there is an existence beyond the one in this plane, in which I AM a believer, then I hope it is a better place than this one. Sorry, but I do. This world sucks because of greed, unrestrained capitalism. It drives me nuts that 25,000 people A DAY die of starvation. How can any of us even let this be? And what about healthcare, dental care? Taking care of our children?
Nope, we spend, spend, spend, spend on WAR. We have allowed just a few greed-heads to call the shots and create a system that transfers more and more money from our treasury to put in the pockets of a few freakish billionaire parasites - dirt-bags who make life hard for the rest of us.
And, let's not forget our monetized 'profit over people' healthcare system that ALWAYS puts payment over patient interest.
I guess I look at this world as it is, and think of how it could be, and think of John Lennon. Because I don't think I'm the only one who imagines a better world than this shit hole we've made and have to swim around in every day.
Anyway, I don't mean to offend anyone. Just brought wife home from hospital, turns out she was prematurely discharged, so somebody just called me about the 'self pay.' THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MINUTE before you stick up for Manchin or Sinema, because they are the ones who held up Biden's plan to lower the age of medicare eligibility.
teach1st
(5,928 posts)I think you said it right here:
The death penalty has not been shown to be a deterrent and some offenders find it preferable to execution. It can also be subject to legal biases and missteps and it is more expensive than life imprisonment. In addition, killing a prisoner is irrevocable. As much as we're confident with DNA evidence and confessions and videos, they are not infallible.
calimary
(80,693 posts)MOST compelling.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Very mixed feelings about capital punishment. But I'm devious enough to point out that the capital punishment thing is a FREAKIN' FABULOUS way to blow a hole through almost any so-called right-to-life holier-than-thou. Chances are, said "pro-lifer" will be a staunch supporter of the death penalty. Fun to fuck with 'em!
I_UndergroundPanther
(12,450 posts)I feel. I feel ya.
And I agree capitalism sucks, Gawd I dispise ogliarches. They should not be allowed to make so much money they get to have laws custom made for themselves at the expense of everyone's quality of life.
I really dont have much attachment to life either,it tends to suck more often than not,so I agree with you there..
And I also think the death penalty has a valid purpose to kill monsters and pedophiles.
orangecrush
(19,236 posts)The populations of prisons in the US are largely minorities, as are the percentage of those executed.
PatrickforB
(14,516 posts)Anyway, my poop stinks just fine and I am FAR from perfect. But if you read my whole post it was a screed AGAINST unrestrained capitalism, which hurts minorities more, and the monetized healthcare system, which hurts minorities more, and the need for us to rethink the role of the government around things where the profit motive is in direct conflict with our needs as people, because privatization and deregulation hurts minorities more, as does gutting social programs. The institutional racism pervades everything, as does institutional sexism, and certainly we have been facing a war on the middle class and working people ever since the New Deal or before.
So you can feel the way you do, and I will feel the way I do. You'll not convince me, and I'll not convince you. But here's the thing - social and economic justice necessarily ALWAYS go hand in hand. Right now a few oligarchs and sociopathic CEOs call the shots and it hurts every. single. one. of. us.
Death penalty aside. Because from a policy standpoint, the privatization of prisons and the drug 'war' have hurt minorities far more than the death penalty, which in itself is only a subset of the far greater evil. We have a system that delights in exploitation of people, and in driving wedges between us, like the one you apparently perceive between thee and me. Because that wedge should not be there.
My big issue has always been our monetized healthcare system, which ALSO hurts minorities big time, and if you read my post all the way, you would see that I felt like shit anyway because I just got back from bringing my wife home from the hospital. Turns out she was discharged early, by mistake, before the bean counters got all the beans in a row, so now I am vulnerable to getting screwed up and down by a fucking system that cares more about profits and retained earnings than it EVER did about my wife or me as patients.
kaotikross
(246 posts)I agree 100% with your take on the worst of the worst. If they have DNA evidence and it's double-triple checked for a serial killer I see no need for that killer to remain breathing. As to firing squads, if it's good enough for our servicemen to die that way (via an enemy bullet) it's good enough for a serial killer.
In most firing squads only one man has a dummy round, the blood loss is tremendous and effects an immediate loss of consciousness. Pretty humane in the grand scheme and a lot faster than lying on a cot and wondering when you'll feel the drugs kick in. The electric chair is a little better as to minimizing the suffering, it's only a scond or two. Hanging's the worst, broken neck or not they might remain conscious for minutes and if done imporperly they can strangle for 20 minutes to a half hour.
I'm far from pro-death and I don't want to see everybody convicted of a murder getting the death penalty but for some like the ones you mentioned I have zero issues with removing them from the equation permanently. Gacy, Bundy, etc.
Turbineguy
(37,208 posts)the right to die by being shot.
calimary
(80,693 posts)People meet that fate on American streets and in American homes and neighborhoods every day.
SergeStorms
(18,893 posts)Now there's a money maker for the South Carolina GQP!
Wow, Donald Trump as the announcer (for a hefty percentage of the take), maybe Kid Rock for a "musical" guest, and Special Guest executioners including Lauren Boebert, Empty Greene, Ted Cruz, Wayne LaPierre, and Maddy Cawthorn!
Get your tickets now. It will drive the libs crazy
LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)I could see though how that would go over big as a new reality show in the next, gawd forbid, Trump America. Especially if it was Democrats, and news journalists, and antifa, BLM protesters lined up against the wall.
orangecrush
(19,236 posts)"Antifa", huh?
LiberalLovinLug
(14,154 posts)If you are of the opposite camp I don't know why you are here.
Or if you are sucked into the right wing narrative of elevating this more educated youth orientated loose alliance of protesters, who first emerged as a counter weight protest to the rash of white supremacist, neo-Nazi protests, made up mostly of university students when they started, into some kind of dangerous terrorist organization, then I don't know what to say to you.
Piling on with the Right to demonize the next generation of more politically aware young people, who are concerned about the direction of the county towards Fascism, still a threat as long as Trump is the GOP leader, is a big mistake. Even if a very few of them may go too far with property damage, as some in BLM protests also have, many of those damages most likely caused by provocateurs from the Right, does not delegitimatize either of those groups concerns, IMO.
You have to look beyond the hysteria from the Right over isolated instances. From WTO protests, to Occupy Wall Street, to anti war protests, there will always be one or two bad apples, either plants, or police provocateurs, or just some dumb idiots that use the cover of a massive street occupatoin with getting out their frustrations on a glass window. The Right is great at finding that one or two stories to spread a false impression of the whole group, as they are doing with BLM.
Do you also believe Putin's claims that he is "de-Nazifying" Ukraine? Just because your enemy, whether its Putin or the GOP propaganda machine, tells you to believe some group of people are a menace, does not mean they are.
good bye
BradAllison
(1,879 posts)A point many here don't like to hear, but too fucking bad. I expect nothing less from that shithole.
canetoad
(17,088 posts)I'd suggest something to do with drug availability, lawsuits and experimental drug combinations. Everything in the US reverts back to $.
Believe me, if there were some way that Fox could broadcast executions, they would be doing so.
SKKY
(11,771 posts)..."Has anyone run the numbers on potential pay-per-view intakes of executions by firing squad?"
electric_blue68
(14,600 posts)orangecrush
(19,236 posts)Cheezoholic
(1,967 posts)If you kill 10k confessed murderers and one of them lied, you are no less guilty than those you killed. The death penalty is state sponsored vengeance and as such can and is exploited for political gain and is regressive behavior that prevents human society from moving beyond many primitive social constructs. Besides vengeance its roots are based in racism of all sorts and in religious beliefs of a "heaven and hell". It has no place in a human society that wishes to evolve. I can't even believe it's a discussion on DU.
monkeyman1
(5,109 posts)Rhiannon12866
(202,970 posts)Marthe48
(16,691 posts)when their elected officials are over the top and make worse and worse decisions, that are counter to Constitutional norms, isn't there some way the federal government can rein in those rogue state governments in? r's took over Detroit a few years ago on a pretext. Anything in the Constitution that would help the fed top the states? I am sick of states' rights being more important that the United States. I'm sick of abortion rights being stolen, civil rights trampled on, voting rights being erased, sick of guns everywhere, sick of threats to impeach, or ignore election results, from 2 bit r's. I'm sick of stupid people bossing us. They can't run their own lives, and I'm damned if they are running mine. This is just another move to some primitive tribal guidelines. We are losing the rule of law and it makes me sick.
twodogsbarking
(9,302 posts)milestogo
(16,829 posts)And will tickets be sold?
Sancho
(9,065 posts)Now that DeSatan has his own state army, anything is possible.
The Grand Illuminist
(1,306 posts)hatrack
(59,439 posts).