Prisoner Richard Bernard Moore, 57, sentenced to death in South Carolina (USA), chose to be executed by firing squad instead of the electric chair. He is only the fourth American to choose this method since 1976, when the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in the country.
The execution would take place on the 29th of this month, according to the American newspaper New York Post, but the Supreme Court of South Carolina stayed the action.
Richard has been on death row since 2001 following his conviction for the 1999 murder of clerk James Mahoney in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
The prisoner’s execution was scheduled to take place in 2020, using lethal injection, but because drug manufacturers refuse to provide the necessary ingredients, this method is being abandoned in the US state.
So he had to choose between the electric chair and the firing squad — and he ended up choosing the latter. In a statement, Moore says he is being forced to choose between two unconstitutional methods of execution, and that he will not waive any electrocution or shooting contests.
“I don’t believe the Department [de Correções] must certify that a method prescribed by law, such as lethal injection, is not available without demonstrating a good faith effort to make it available,” he said.
Bryan P. Stirling, director of the state Department of Corrections, said that despite efforts, he “was unable to obtain or acquire the drugs necessary for execution by lethal injection” and that the manufacturers “refused to sell the drugs to the Department.” in testimony published in the American newspaper The Washington Post.
The prisoner’s lawyers report that being forced to choose between a firing squad and the electric chair amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”, and that Moore’s conviction does not justify execution, being a disproportionate sentence compared to other similar crimes.
Lindsey Vann, one of Richard’s lawyers, said these methods are old-fashioned and barbaric. “The electric chair and firing squad are antiquated and barbaric methods of execution that virtually all US jurisdictions have left behind,” she said.
Lawyers still allege that authorities are not working hard enough to get the ingredients needed for the lethal injection. The defense asked the state Supreme Court to delay the death, while two other courts review the legality of the sentence.
The state of South Carolina has 35 death row inmates, with the last execution by electric chair taking place in 2008.
A year-old law passed in South Carolina, one of 27 states where the death penalty remains legal in the country, forces convicts to choose the available methods, making the electric chair the standard method of execution but allowing inmates to option to be shot — which is only allowed in three other states, which are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.
The electric chair has been used in seven of 43 executions in South Carolina since 1985, which has executed 282 men and two women since 1912, when the electric chair began. In 1995, the state became the 25th to authorize lethal injections. The shooting took place three times in the US, all in the state of Utah.
