The South Carolina Death Prisoner Mikal Mahdi has chosen to die as a fired squad, making it a second in the state, which chooses the controversial and rarely used method of implementation this year.
The 41-year-old Mahdi pleaded guilty to the murder of a police officer in 2004 and was sentenced to death in 2006. He was planned to be executed at 6:00 pm on April 11 at the River Correctional Institution in Colombia. While death by dismissal of a squad is legal, it is regarded by many Americans as an inhuman form of justice.
“Faced with barbaric and inhuman choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen less than three evils,” one of his lawyers David Weiss said in a statement. “Mikal chose the squad instead of being burned and crippled on the electric chair or to suffer a long -lasting death of the deadly injection of Gurney.”
Mikal Mahdi. (Department of South Carolina adjustments via AP)
Mahdi has another chance of pardon. Just minutes before he is planned to be executed, he may ask Republican governor Henry McMaster to reduce his sentence to prison without conditional release. In 49 years, since the state reimbursed the death penalty, no governor has provided pardon.
The news comes weeks after South Carolina executed Death Row prisoner Brad Sigmon, 67. He was executed by the squad on March 7th. It was the first such performance after South Carolina legalized the method in 2021. Sigmon was condemned in 2001 for killing his ex -girlfriend’s parents at their home. Prosecutors said he also kept his ex -girlfriend under shooting and tried to kidnap her, but she escaped. He fired at her as she was running, but missed.
Prior to Sigmon’s execution, there were only three executions by dismissing a squad in the United States since 1976 and all of them happened in Utah. Sigmon’s performance was the first time in over 15 years that the prisoner in the United States was shot dead to death as a method of performance.
According to the Associated Press, Sigmon’s lawyer Gerald King said in a statement that his client admits that the execution of a squad would be a violent death, but he believes that this is the best option.
Electrococcus, King said, will “burn and cook” Sigmon alive, while the deadly injection would mean the risk of “the prolonged death suffered by the three of the men South Carolina had performed in September – three men whom Brad knew and cared for – who remained alive, more than 20 minutes.”
How death by dismissing a squad usually works
Performance by dismissing a squad, according to the death penal information center, usually includes a prisoner bound in a chair in front of a wall.
The prisoner can speak any last and last words before standing a squad of about 20 feet from the prisoner. The sand bags are placed near the chair to protect the bullets from ricocating around the room.
In accordance with the rules of South Carolina, three volunteer officials from the Ministry of Correction were armed with weapons loaded with live ammunition.
The prisoner usually dies as a result of blood loss caused by a rupture of the heart or a large blood vessel, the DPIC website said.
How many executions of units did they have?
In the history of the nation, 34 people were executed by a detachment, according to DPIC data. This is the only method of performance that has 0% boots. Relatively, death through a deadly injection has the most boting degree of implementation at 7.12%.
Prior to Sigmon’s execution, the latest death by dismissal was in 2010, when 49-year-old Ronnie Li Gardner was executed in Salt Lake County. He was declared dead two minutes after being shot.
What countries are they currently using the method?
The following five countries have authorized the execution by dismissing a squad in certain cases:
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Idaho: Deadly injection is the main method of implementation under state legislation, but if the director of the Department of Adjustment Department in Idaho determines that it is inaccessible, then a fired squad will be used.
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Mississippi: The 2022 State Law allows correction staff to choose their preferred method of implementation – or a deadly injection, electrquotion, launching a squad or nitrogen hypoxia.
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Oklahola: If other methods such as a deadly injection, nitrogen hypoxia or electrocation are defined as unconstitutional or otherwise available, then death by dismissing a squad is permitted a method of implementation under state legislation.
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South Carolina: State legislation says the prisoner can choose his performance method: electricity, launching a squad or a deadly injection.
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Utah: If lethal injection medicines are not available or if the court finds that use is unconstitutional, then death by dismissing a squad will be the method of execution, according to State Law.