Avoiding Deceitful Death Row Inmates, South Carolina Implements Death Penalty

The injection penalty room is dead. (Wikimedia Commons/California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)

JAKARTA - The South Carolina House of Representatives passed the Bill (RUU), which allows the death penalty to be carried out using firing squad.

This is part of an effort to amend the South Carolina Law in the execution of sentences for death row inmates, which have been carried out by electric chair shocks or lethal injection.

While most death row inmates chose to be executed by lethal injection, the South Carolina authorities had difficulty carrying out the executions, along with the difficulty in fulfilling the lethal drugs required for the executions.

Conditions that led to executions in South Carolina and other states, stopped because of difficulties in obtaining the necessary medicine. South Carolina itself has not carried out an execution since 2011. This is often used as a way for death row inmates to avoid being executed.

In the new bill, the method of automatic execution changes to electric sting, if the execution of lethal injection cannot be carried out, with the option of shooting dead. Dead injections are still available, as long as injectable drugs are available and available.

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said he intends to sign the bill into law if it is passed by the state legislature.

"We are one step closer to giving the families of victims and loved ones the justice and closure they are entitled to legally. I will sign this law as soon as it reaches my table," he said in a statement.

South Carolina's House of Representatives passes the bill with a vote of 66-43. The state Senate issued a similar version in March and must approve the House language before sending it to the governor.

Opponents of the measure lamented the new methods of execution as well as the general use of the death penalty. State Representative Justin Bamberg described the profound nature of electrocution deaths on the floor of the DPR during the debate, outlining the step-by-step procedures during the execution process.

"You can not be afraid of reality. You can not choose electric shock and death and be afraid to face it in front of your eyes," explained Justin.

"This is 2021. We must move away from savage forms of punishment that are more medieval than modern. Today, our country has taken a step back and I am ashamed," State House Democratic Leader Todd Rutherford said in a statement after the bill's passing hearing.

If signed into law, South Carolina will be the fourth state to provide the death penalty by firing squad, after Oklahoma, Mississippi and Utah.