Official green light in South Carolina to be shot as one of the methods of executing death row inmates. The shock measure was approved in May last year to overcome difficulties in finding the mix of poisons needed for lethal injections, with many pharmaceutical companies banning their export to the US for humanitarian reasons. It is for this reason that the last time of an execution in South Carolina dates back to 2011. Until now, the condemned, having the choice between the injection and the electric chair, had opted for the former, effectively preventing their execution.
South Carolina prison authorities have announced that renovations of the Columbia “death chamber” have been completed and have notified Attorney General Alan Wilson of the official green light for execution as a method of executing death sentences. According to CBS, there is now also a metal chair in the room on which the prisoner who chooses the firing squad will have to sit. About four meters from the emplacement, a wall with a rectangular opening, through which three shooters will shoot the condemned man. Among the promoters of the shock measure, Democratic Senator Dick Harpootlian, a former prosecutor now a criminal lawyer, according to whom shooting “is the least painful and most humane method that exists”.