An inmate on South Carolina’s death row has chosen to die on March 7 by firing squad, his lawyer said Friday.
Brad Sigmon, 67, who was convicted in 2002 of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents, would be the by that method in South Carolina and the first inmate to die by firing squad in the U.S. since 2010, when was put to death in Utah.
“The choice Brad faced today was impossible,” his attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, said in a statement. “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.”
Had Sigmon chosen to die by lethal injection, King said “he risked the prolonged death suffered by all three of the men South Carolina has executed since September—three men Brad knew and cared for—who remained alive, strapped to a gurney, for more than 20 minutes” before they died.
One of them was Richard Bernard Moore, who was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in 1999. He also had requested to die by firing squad after the state procured lethal injection drugs. Moore, 59, in November.
As for Sigmon, he was left with a “shameful” dilemma, King said.
“The only choice that remained is the firing squad,” the lawyer said. “Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body. He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses or the execution team.”
Sigmon has spent more than two decades on death row after he was convicted in the 2001 beating death of his ex-girlfriend’s parents.
Barring any last-minute appeals, Sigmon will be executed at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, where he is being held, said , a spokesperson for King.
South Carolina Department of Corrections spokesperson Chrysti Shain declined to comment on Sigmon’s decision.
The department said in a 2022 news release that the execution chamber at Broad River “has been renovated to include the capacity to perform an execution by firing squad.”
“The chamber now includes a chair in which inmates will sit if they choose execution by firing squad,” it said. “The chair is in a corner of the room away from the current electric chair, which cannot be moved.”
Bullet-resistant glass has been installed between the witness room and the death chamber, it said, describing the firing squad chair as “metal with restraints” and “surrounded by protective equipment.”
“The chair faces a wall with a rectangular opening 15 feet away,” it said.
Condemned prisoners face a firing squad of three volunteers who work for the DOC and are armed with rifles containing live ammunition, it said, describing firing squad protocols. Witnesses will see the prisoner in profile from the right side.
The inmate will wear a prison-issued uniform and be allowed to make a last statement before being strapped into the chair and having a hood placed over his head.
“A small aim point will be placed over his heart by a member of the execution team,” the statement said.
When the warden finishes reading the execution order, “the team will fire.”
“After the shots, a doctor will examine the inmate,” it said. “After the inmate is declared dead, the curtain will be drawn and witnesses escorted out.”
South Carolina received approval to perform executions by firing squad , a year after a that made death by electric chair or firing squad legal options for people on death row.
Lawmakers proposed the bill, which made electrocution the default method of execution, because South Carolina was having trouble procuring the drugs needed for lethal injection, which remains the most widely used method of execution in other states.
Last year, Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner using another alternative to lethal injection, .
Kenneth Eugene Smith, 58, was strapped to a gurney and pronounced dead 15 minutes after breathing in nitrogen gas through a mask, depriving him of oxygen, said prison officials at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore.
King said, “Brad’s execution would set grim precedents for South Carolina.”
“He would be the first person that South Carolina has ever killed by a firing squad and the oldest person South Carolina has ever put to death,” King said. “He would also be only the fourth person to be killed by firing squad in the United States in the last 65 years.”
