SC Set to Resume Executions Following 10 Year Hiatus

The U.S. District Court of South Carolina denied Friday an injunction filed by death row inmates Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens. The two asked the court to find the electric chair to be declared cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Constitution’s 8th Amendment.

In May, Governor McMaster added the electric chair and a firing squad to the state’s methods of execution, but since the firing squad has not yet been formed, Sigmon and Owens are set to die by the only method available, electrocution, on June 18th and 25th respectively.

It will be the first death row execution in South Carolina in ten years. The involuntary pause was due to a lack of drugs for lethal injection.