South Carolina executes man by firing squad, in state’s third such killing in year | South Carolina

South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday; This marks the third time the state has used a gun to kill a person on death row, despite growing backlash against the method.

Stephen Bryant, 44, married Willard “TJ” Tietjen and pleaded guilty to two other murders. Bryant’s lawyers, in the final appeal, argued that the judge who imposed the sentence cannot account for brain damage Due to her mother’s alcohol and drug use during pregnancy, however, South Carolina’s supreme court refused to stay the execution On Monday.

Death sentences were revived in South Carolina last year, killing six people in rapid succession after a 13-year suspension of capital punishment. In March, the state carried out its first firing squad execution, which human rights advocates described as “barbaric” and not carried out anywhere in the United States in 15 years.

According to the AP, Bryant’s lawyers argued that a full brain scan was not performed before his 2008 trial and that the damage could not have been detected. reported. His attorneys argued that his attorney “ignored numerous red flags of brain damage” at sentencing, saying the brain damage was caused by “horrendous physical and sexual abuse inflicted by several family members” during his childhood.

The South Carolina attorney general’s office argued that Bryant’s brain injury claims were unfounded, saying Bryant was “methodical, cunning” and took pleasure in his crimes, including “inflicting unprovoked terror on Mr. Tietjen’s family.”

“The defendant’s character and the circumstances of the crimes warrant the most severe sentence,” the state’s attorneys wrote.

inspectors in question Bryant burned Tietjen’s eyes with a cigarette and wrote mocking messages with his blood.

Defendants sentenced to death in South Carolina are now directed to choose how they will be killed: the electric chair, lethal injection or assault with a gun. While lethal injection is the most common method in US states where executions continue, concerns are growing that the use of pentobarbital, a sedative, could cause a prolonged, excruciating death.

In a recent pentobarbital execution in Tennessee, records showed the man’s lungs were swollen with fluid; This causes feelings of suffocation and suffocation, which death penalty attorneys say.

Brad Sigmon, the first person killed by firing squad in South Carolina this year, chose to use a firearm because he was concerned about reports that three men executed before him and whom he knew well suffered painful deaths that lasted more than 20 minutes, his lawyers said. He chose to shoot a gun rather than be “burned alive” by electrocution.

Lawyers for Mikal Mehdi, the second person shot and killed by South Carolina authorities, said he chose the “lesser of three evils.” Mehdi’s lawyers said the autopsy showed that the execution was botched, with the attackers missing the target area in his heart, leading to prolonged death. State corrections officials disputed the attorneys’ claims, saying an autopsy showed the attackers shot his heart before attacking other organs.

Defendants facing firing squads in the state are often tied to a chair and a hood is placed over their heads before three gunmen open fire.

Bryant’s lawyers and the attorney general’s office declined to comment ahead of the execution. Chrysti Shain, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, addressed past statements that the firing squad did not miss Mahdi’s heart. he said accounts Results of the state’s recent lethal injection executions suggested the men “soon stopped breathing.”

With Bryant’s execution, South Carolina cemented its status as a leader in firing squad murders. Under the modern death penalty in the last five decades, Utah is the only other state to execute three people by gunfire, with the last firing squad murder occurring in 2010. Idaho is moving to make its firing squad headquarters. priority Execution methods and killings with firearms still continue. Legal in Mississippi and Oklahoma.

The Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in an interview before the execution that people sentenced to death face an “impossible choice”: “Do you choose to die by poisoning, similar to waterboarding, do you choose to be cooked to death by electrocution, or do you choose to have your heart ripped out of your chest by a firing squad?”

Taylor argued that more gun violence is not the solution to crime. He drew attention to the court records showing Bryant had sought mental health treatment before the murders but could not afford the $75 fee for care: “We’re never going to solve the problem of violence in South Carolina if we’re not willing to stop this from happening in the first place.”