In a Time Magazine article, Professor Deborah Denno shares her insight on the history of firing squad executions and their recent comeback in South Carolina.
For prisoners on death row who choose to face the firing squad, [South Carolina] installed a metal chair with restraints for the ankles, legs, chest, arms, and head. New protocols say the prisoner will be strapped into the chair with a hood over his head, and a small aim point placed over his heart. The three-person execution team will stand behind a wall fifteen feet away, pointing their rifles through a rectangular opening, aiming with live ammunition. The warden will read the order. The team will fire. Witnesses can watch the grim proceedings behind bullet-resistant glass. Once a doctor declares the prisoner dead, the viewers will be escorted out.
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A firing squad has only been used three times since the U.S. Supreme Court brought back the death penalty in 1976, and the most recent use was more than a decade ago.
All three were carried out in Utah, which has long offered the method in part due to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ belief in “blood atonement” at the time, says Deborah W. Denno, a professor at Fordham School of Law. South Carolina has never conducted a firing squad execution in the modern era.