A South Carolina man scheduled for execution must choose whether he'd like to die by firing squad, lethal injection, or the electric chair, or the state will decide for him.
Brad Sigmon, 67, has to choose how to die by Feb. 21. Otherwise, the state automatically selects the electric chair for him, WSCS-5 reported. In 2001, Sigmon murdered his parents and then kidnapped his ex-girlfriend, who he also planned to murder. The woman escaped from his car, and Sigmon fired a shot at her as she ran away, but he missed.
"My intention was to kill her and then myself. That was my intention all along. If I couldn't have her, I wasn't going to let anybody else have her. And I knew it got to the point where I couldn't have her," the station quoted Sigmon's confession.
So far, no one has selected firing squad as an option in South Carolina. The Post and Courier reported that the method was added as an option in 2021.
The state installed "bullet-resistant" glass to protect witnesses. The inmate will be strapped, seated in a chair and a hood placed over his or her head. "Three firing squad members will be behind the wall, with rifles facing the inmate through the opening," the state's protocol says. "After the warden reads the execution order, the team will fire. After the shots, a doctor will examine the inmate."
The shooters are volunteers and must meet "certain qualifications."
The last person in South Carolina to be electrocuted was in 2008. The Post and Courier notes that less than two percent of electric chair executions nationally have been "botched."
"Electrical components have been updated as needed and as technology has improved," South Carolina Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain told the newspaper. Prisoners receive 2,000 volts for 4.5 seconds, 1,000 volts for eight seconds, and then 120 volts for two minutes.
South Carolina's most recent execution was last Friday, when Marion Bowman Jr. died by lethal injection. Bowman had maintained his innocence in the murder of 21-year-old Kandee Martin in 2002.
Sigmon's attorneys have requested an autopsy of Bowman so that Sigmon has adequate information to decide how he'd like to die. "With the information currently available to Mr. Sigmon, he cannot begin to assess, much less contend, which method is the more inhumane," WSCS-5 quoted from a court filing.
In November 2024 the state executed Richard Moore via lethal injection and a defense expert said that Moore probably felt like he was drowning and slowly suffocating for 23 minutes given the fluid in his lungs, WSCS-5 reported.
