South Carolina prison director says electric chair, firing squad and lethal injection ready to go (2024)

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South Carolina prison director says electric chair, firing squad and lethal injection ready to go? ›

The state's electric chair, built in 1912, was tested June 25 and found to be working properly, Stirling wrote, without providing additional details. And the firing squad, allowed by a 2021 law, has the guns, ammunition and training it needs, Stirling wrote.

-- South Carolina has set a Sept. 20 date to put inmate Freddie Eugene Owens to death in what would be the state's first execution in more than 13 years.

The first, more powerful jolt (between 2000 and 2,500 volts) is intended to cause immediate unconsciousness, ventricular fibrillation, and eventual cardiac arrest. The second, less powerful jolt (500–1,500 volts) is intended to cause lethal damage to the vital organs.

Medical experts have found that lethal injection can cause pulmonary edema – “the feeling of choking, drowning in [one's] own fluids, suffocating, being buried alive, and [a] burning sensation” while being “unable to speak or scream.”

The law made electrocution South Carolina's default execution method, if lethal injection drugs were unavailable, and codified death by firing squad as an alternative option for condemned inmates.

On January 15, 1943, Sue Logue, George Logue, and Clarence Bagwell were executed in South Carolina's electric chair, in that order. The executions took place at approximately 7:00 am. Sue Logue's execution made her the first woman, albeit not the only one, to be executed in South Carolina's electric chair.

One of the busiest states for capital punishment, South Carolina hasn't performed an execution since 2011. Its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell more. But the addition of a secrecy law last year allowed the state to obtain a different drug.

If all goes as planned, the entire execution takes about five minutes, with death usually occurring less than two minutes after the final injection. However, botched lethal injections have sometimes required more than two hours to achieve death.

Wenceslao Moguel Herrera (1 November 1896 – 29 July 1976), known in the press as El Fusilado (Spanish: "The Shot One"), was a Mexican soldier under Pancho Villa who was captured on 18 March 1915 during the Mexican Revolution, and survived execution by firing squad.

If someone survives the death penalty, they are usually re-executed, sometimes on the spot. Survival of the death penalty is not common, but has happened: people survive the intense shock of the electric chair or a lethal injection, requiring a second administration of the execution.

Why do they execute people at midnight? ›

Scheduling the execution for 12:01 a.m. gives the state as much time as possible to deal with last-minute legal appeals and temporary stays, which have a way of eating up time. Another advantage is that the rest of the inmates are locked down and, presumably, asleep.

In a common lethal injection protocol, a trio of chemicals is administered in three steps: First, an anesthetic renders an inmate unconscious; then a second drug paralyzes them; and finally, a third stops their heart.

A heart monitor is attached to the inmate. In most states, the intravenous injection is a series of drugs given in a set sequence, designed to first induce unconsciousness followed by death through paralysis of respiratory muscles and/or by cardiac arrest through depolarization of cardiac muscle cells.

The Philippines adopted the chair during American occupation but used it last in 1976. No other country has used it, though Winston Churchill speculated that it might be used to publicly execute Adolph Hitler if he were captured.

At Auburn Prison in New York, the first execution by electrocution in history is carried out against William Kemmler, who had been convicted of murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. Electrocution as a humane means of execution was first suggested in 1881 by Dr. Albert Southwick, a dentist.

"The first execution used a voltage of about 1,700, although it was not officially recorded. The voltage has tended to increase over time and in the modern era the voltage is usually 2,000 to 2,200 volts at seven to twelve amps."

It provides that prison staff, official witnesses, members of the victim's family and representatives of the convicted felon be present.

An execution schedule is a series of tasks, or steps, that can be run sequentially at a scheduled time. An execution schedule can also be tasks that run when they are triggered by an event such as a build completion.

Death warrant

A paper, typically signed by the governor or a judge, setting a date of execution. The warrant is then served on the defendant and his attorney. Typically, shortly before the execution, the inmate is moved to a cell closer to the death chamber and kept on 24 hour suicide watch.