South Carolina’s highest court apparently is not ready to allow the state to restart executions after more than 12 years until they hear more arguments about newly obtained lethal injection drugs as well as a recently added firing squad and the old electric chair.
The state Supreme Court set a Feb. 6 date for a hearing over a lawsuit by four death row inmates out of appeals who initially argued dying by electrocution or bullets to the heart is cruel and unusual punishment.
South Carolina has not carried out an execution since 2011 after the state’s supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell them more unless the transaction could be kept secret.
The state passed a shield law earlier this year to hide the identities of drug companies, the names of anyone helping with an execution and the exact procedure followed. In September, prison officials announced they now have the sedative pentobarbital and changed the method of execution from using three drugs to just one.
Tuesday’s order from the Supreme Court allows lawyers for the inmates to argue parts of the shield law are not constitutional as well.
South Carolina used to carry out an average of three executions a year. But just 33 inmates are awaiting a death sentence and only three have been sent to death row since the last execution in 2011 as prosecutors face rising costs and more vigorous defenses, choosing to accept guilty pleas and life in prison without parole.
The state asked the Supreme Court to toss out a lower court ruling after a 2022 trial that the electric chair and the firing squad are cruel and unusual punishments. That would allow executions to restart now that an inmate could choose lethal injection since the drugs were available.
