By Ginger Adams Otis

South Carolina executed a death row inmate by firing squad Friday, the first time in modern history the method has been used in the state.

The 67-year-old inmate, Brad Sigmon, was convicted of a double-murder and sentenced to death in 2001. He chose his method of execution and selected the firing squad over electrocution or lethal injection.

Sigmon's lawyer, Gerald King, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Sigmon had "devoted every day of the 20 years that he spent in prison, in prayer, trying to repent for the terrible things that he did," King said in an earlier interview with WYFF, a local NBC affiliate.

King's legal efforts in the courts to halt Sigmon's execution failed, as did last-minute appeals to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster for clemency. The governor announced his decision to deny executive clemency moments after the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time for Sigmon.

In 2021, South Carolina's general assembly approved the use of a firing squad for condemned inmates. Only four other states allow firing squads for executions -- Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a research organization that is critical of the death penalty.

Public support for capital punishment is at a five-decade low, hovering around 53%, according to the center. The number of people on death row across the U.S. has continued to decline from a peak population in the year 2000. There were 25 executions in nine states in 2024, the center said.

During President Trump's first term in the White House, he oversaw a flurry of executions. That changed under the Biden administration, which halted federal executions for over a year at one point. Before leaving office, Biden commuted death sentences to life imprisonment for 37 inmates, a move that prevents Trump from executing most men on federal death row. Biden left death sentences in place for three inmates found guilty of terrorism or hate-motivated mass killings.

Three executions by firing squad have been carried out in the U.S. since 1977 -- all of which have taken place in Utah -- with the most recent in 2010, the center said. Executions resumed in 1977 after a hiatus imposed by the Supreme Court to address legal challenges to the death penalty.

South Carolina's Department of Corrections didn't release the type of rifle used in Sigmon's execution. All the members of the execution team are department employees who volunteer to participate, the agency said. That includes the three shooters, as well as all medical, security and other personnel. The execution teams practice each month for all methods, the agency said.

The three Department of Corrections employees on Sigmon's firing squad were trained to all shoot once at the same time. All of them had live ammunition. The execution took place at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C.

Sigmon's lawyer made a brief statement on his behalf before the execution, the department said. Sigmon was seated and after the final statement was read, a hood was placed over his head. An aim point was placed over his heart by a member of the execution team.

South Carolina renovated Broad River's death chamber to accommodate firing squads as an execution method after that became a choice for inmates. Bullet-resistant glass has been installed between the room that holds witnesses and the death chamber. The firing squad chair is metal with restraints and is surrounded by protective equipment. The shooters fire from behind a wall with a rectangular opening about 15 feet away from the chair. The rifles and open portal aren't visible from the witness room. The inmate's chair is positioned so that witnesses only see a profile, the department said.

Write to Ginger Adams Otis at Ginger.AdamsOtis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 07, 2025 19:08 ET (00:08 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.