SC lawmaker calls for firing squads to carry out the death penalty

A South Carolina legislator is planning to refile a bill that calls for firing squads to help execute the state’s death row inmates.

Rep. Josh Putnam, R-Anderson, said the inability to execute prisoners is creating issues the public doesn’t understand, according to Fox Carolina.

“When we can’t perform an execution, we have to go back through the resentencing process,” he said in an interview with WSPA. “For all the victims and the families of the victim, going back through the trial, the court process, the resentencing, that is usually a very traumatizing experience for them.”

The Associated Press reported 1st Circuit Solicitor David Pascoe also has made a call for firing squads after a former death row inmate – who originally was sentenced to death for a 1998 murder – became the latest killer to get a reprieve.

During the 2017 legislative session, lawmakers considered several alternative methods of execution, including lethal gas and morphine. And in 2015, Putnam introduced a similar bill calling for firing squads.

There are 35 men living in South Carolina’s death row in Columbia, and since 2013, state officials have had no way of executing them.

There are no pending orders to execute an inmate. The majority of cases involving inmates slated for execution are in litigation. The last inmate to be executed in South Carolina was 36-year-old Jeffrey Motts in 2011.

This story was originally published February 6, 2018 at 1:47 PM with the headline "SC lawmaker calls for firing squads to carry out the death penalty."