OLDE SPARKY
File Photo by Doug Smith/Florida Department of Corrections
Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A South Carolina judge ruled that the state's attempts to execute inmates by firing squad or the electric chair are unconstitutional.
In a 39-page opinion, Fifth Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman said that South Carolina's attempts to use firing squads and the electric chair would be counter to evolving standards of decency.
"In doing so, the General Assembly ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency," Newman said, arguing that executing death row inmates by firing squad or electric chair violates the state's constitution, which protects against cruel, corporal and unusual punishments.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is likely to appeal the ruling, the State reported.
Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A South Carolina judge ruled that the state's attempts to execute inmates by firing squad or the electric chair are unconstitutional.
In a 39-page opinion, Fifth Circuit Judge Jocelyn Newman said that South Carolina's attempts to use firing squads and the electric chair would be counter to evolving standards of decency.
"In doing so, the General Assembly ignored advances in scientific research and evolving standards of humanity and decency," Newman said, arguing that executing death row inmates by firing squad or electric chair violates the state's constitution, which protects against cruel, corporal and unusual punishments.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is likely to appeal the ruling, the State reported.
"There have been a lot of cases in the U.S. Supreme Court as well. It's been explained by the justices a number of times. The question is not the method but the procedure to get to the method," McMaster said.
"Our Legislature and others have done a good job in fashioning the best we can do for these sentences. I think that our South Carolina law is constitutional."
Last year, South Carolina's legislature passed a law adding the electric chair and the firing squad as execution methods, after prison officials said that have been unable to obtain chemicals to carry out an execution by lethal injection.
"Lethal injection is the least severe of the three statutorily authorized punishments, and the amended statute effectively revokes that lesser punishment," Newman said.
"When plaintiffs committed their crimes and received their death sentences, the default method of execution was lethal injection, which is according to the Supreme Court of the United States is believed to be the most humane [execution method] available."
Four inmates have challenged the state's execution methods, arguing that South Carolina has not done enough to get lethal injections. Since South Carolina started executing people by lethal injection in 1995, only three people have been executed by electrocution.
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