South Carolina inmate picks firing squad over electric chair

A South Carolina prisoner scheduled for execution later this month has chosen to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair. Court documents filed Friday listed Richard Moore’s decision. Read the documents here.Moore’s April 29 execution would make him the first person executed in the state since 2011. His attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to halt the execution while another court considers whether the state’s capital punishment methods are constitutional. An overview of the firing squad process can be found here.A state law that went into effect last year set electrocution as the default method and added a firing squad option. Correction officials have maintained they are unable to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection, the state’s third method.”Despite diligent efforts, the Department has been unable to obtain or acquire the necessary drugs for execution by lethal injection,” Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said last week in an affidavit to the state Supreme Court.”The Department’s efforts have included contacting manufacturers, all of which have refused to sell the drugs to the Department. The Department has also contacted various compounding pharmacists regarding compounding the drugs for the Department, but those eff0rts also have been unsuccessful. Additionally, the Department has attempted to purchase the bulk components for the drugs and have them compounded, and those efforts have likewise proven unsuccessful. As a result, lethal injection is not available to the Department as a method of execution.”