Electric chair executions halted as court says killers must get firing squad option
The executions of two inmates have been blocked by a US court, who ruled they must get the choice to die by firing squad.
The South Carolina supreme court halted the executions of Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, ruling that officials needed to put together a firing squad to give them the option of how to be killed.
Sigmon, 63, was scheduled to be executed using the electric chair on Friday, the first use of capital punishment in the state in a decade.
Sigmon was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat. Pic AP
He was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in 2002.
Owen’s electric chair execution was set for 25 June, having been convicted of murdering a store worker during a robbery in 1999.
The state recently changed its capital punishment law to address a shortage of lethal injection drugs.
Freddie Owens was convicted of murder during a robbery in 1999. Pic AP
It now forces death row inmates to choose between electrocution or firing squad if the drugs are unavailable.
The law aimed to restart the state’s executions after a 10-year pause caused by its inability to produce the lethal injection.
Prisons officials had previously said they could not get hold of the drugs and had yet to put together a firing squad, leaving the 109-year-old electric chair as the only option.
“The department is moving ahead with creating policies and procedures for a firing squad,” said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain after the court ruling.
“We are looking to other states for guidance through this process. We will notify the court when a firing squad becomes an option for executions.”
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Lawyers for the men said electrocution was cruel and unusual and that the new law moves the state toward less humane execution methods.
They said the men had the right to die by lethal injection – the method both chose – and that the state hadn’t exhausted all methods to acquire the drugs.
Lawyers for the state maintained that prison officials were simply carrying out the law and that the US Supreme Court had never found electrocution to be unconstitutional.
South Carolina is one of eight states to still use the electric chair and four to allow a firing squad, according to the Washington-based non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.
South Carolina’s last execution took place in 2011 and its batch of lethal injection drugs expired two years later.
There are 37 men on the state’s death row.
Death penalty opponents called for South Carolina to scrap capital punishment altogether.
Abraham Bonowitz, director of the national group Death Penalty Action, said he was grateful the execution plans were blocked but felt a bigger change was needed.
“It’s always good news when executions are put on hold, but if the conversation is only about how we kill our prisoners, rather than if the state should have this power, something is very, very wrong,” he said.
“All of this is unnecessary and a costly waste of taxpayer dollars that could be better supporting the needs of all victims of violent crime.”
At a rally on Wednesday, people marked the anniversary of the electrocution of 14-year-old George Stinney, the youngest person executed in America in the 20th century.
Stinney was still a teenager when he was sent to South Carolina’s electric chair after a one-day trial in 1944 in connection with the killings of two white girls.
A judge threw out the black teenager’s conviction in 2014.
Dozens of supporters were outside court as the man accused of fatally shooting the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare made his first appearance.
Luigi Mangione has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder following the 4 December killing of Brian Thompson, 50, outside a midtown Manhattan hotel.
The 26-year-old is accused of ambushing and shooting the executive as he walked to an investor conference.
Luigi Mangione supporters stand outside the Supreme Court. Pic: AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah
Dozens of people who showed up in court to support the suspect including former army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning who was jailed for stealing classified diplomatic cables.
Dozens more queued in the hallway.
Mangione is also facing federal charges that could carry the possibility of the death penalty.
The judge set a deadline of 9 April to submit pre-trial motions.
Luigi Mangione is accused of fatally shooting Brian Thompson. Pic: Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP
In addition to the New York cases, Mr Mangione also faces charges of forgery, carrying firearms without a licence, and other counts in Pennsylvania, where authorities arrested him at a McDonald’s.
Police say he was in possession of a gun, bullets, multiple fake IDs and a handwritten document that expressed “ill will” towards corporate America.
He is being held in a Brooklyn jail alongside several other high-profile defendants, including music mogul and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, and disgraced crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried.
The killing prompted some to voice their resentment at US health insurers, with Mangione attracting a cult following.
A poll taken in the wake of the shooting showed most Americans believe health insurance profits and coverage denials were partly to blame for the incident.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have not “done anything” to end the Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump has said.
He called the French president a “friend of mine” and the UK leader a “nice guy” but said Russia had only agreed to negotiate “because of me”.
Mr Trump made the comments days before both leaders visit the White House for a meeting in which they must try to press Ukraine‘s case while keeping the US leader onside.
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron in Paris: Pic: Number 10/Flickr
The president also continued his criticism of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying he had “no cards” to play.
“I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards. He has no cards. And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it,” he told a Fox radio show.
The comments come after he recently called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator without elections” – apparently in response to Mr Zelenskyy saying his US counterpart was living in a “disinformation space” after Mr Trump claimed Ukraine had started the war.
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Ukraine was also excluded from talks between the top US and Russian diplomats in Riyadh earlier this week.
They were intended to set the stage for future negotiations on ending the war, which started when Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago.
Speaking on Friday evening, Mr Trump denied speculation he could visit Moscow for talks on 9 May – the day Russia celebrates its victory over the Nazis.
President Trump speaks in the Oval Office on Friday. Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also told reporters the Russian and Ukrainian leaders needed to “work together” to end the war.
However, the US has already dealt a huge blow to Kyiv’s position in any future talks.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that a return to pre-war borders was “unrealistic” and ruled out NATO membership as way to guarantee Kyiv’s security.
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President Zelenskyy has insisted he will not accept any deal that his country is not involved in.
Ukraine’s leader held talks with US envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv on Thursday, describing it later as a “good discussion”.
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Mr Kellogg struck a markedly different tone to President Trump when he called Mr Zelenskyy the “courageous leader of a nation at war”.
However, there are concerns over how much influence Mr Kellogg has, with a Ukrainian source saying there was a sense he had been sidelined.
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