A convicted murderer is set to be executed by firing squad in the United States state of South Carolina on Friday, marking the state's first use of the method and the first such execution in the US in nearly 15 years.
Brad Keith Sigmon, the 67-year-old death row inmate, opted for the firing squad over the state's electric chair and lethal injection, citing concerns over the state's execution protocols, reported the Washington Post.
Sigmon was convicted in 2001, and was sentenced to death in 2002, for the murders of David and Gladys Larke, the parents of his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Barbare.
According to court records cited by the Washington Post, Sigmon had grown obsessed with Barbare after she ended their relationship and moved in with her parents.
On April 27, 2001, he broke into their Greenville County home and bludgeoned both to death with a baseball bat before kidnapping Barbare at gunpoint. She managed to escape, and Sigmon was arrested 11 days later in Tennessee.
He later confessed to the crimes and was sentenced to death by a South Carolina jury.
Sigmon's choice of the firing squad has drawn national attention.
South Carolina offers three execution methods: lethal injection, electrocution, or firing squad.
Due to secrecy surrounding the state's lethal injection drugs and concerns over its effectiveness, Sigmon feared experiencing pulmonary edema -- a condition that can cause a sensation of drowning -- during a lethal injection execution.
Recent autopsies of executed inmates Richard Moore and Marion Bowman indicated that both had suffered from the condition, with Bowman reportedly needing a double dose of pentobarbital.
"The fact that he 'chose' this tells you how fearful he is about the lethal injection process," his attorney Gerald 'Bo' King, was quoted as saying in the Washington Post report.
Sigmon will be strapped into a chair at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia at 6 pm on Friday. A target will be placed over his heart, and three shooters standing 15 feet away will fire live rounds at him.
If carried out, this will be the first execution by firing squad in South Carolina's history.
According to a report in The Guardian, Sigmon's legal team has made multiple appeals, arguing that his trial attorneys failed to present adequate evidence of his mental illness and that he has been a model prisoner.
They have petitioned Republican Governor Henry McMaster to commute his sentence to life imprisonment, citing his rehabilitation and remorse.
"Brad is the reason clemency exists," said King. "He suffered from untreated mental illness and tried to self-medicate with street drugs."
Reverend Hillary Taylor, executive director of the nonprofit South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who has served as Sigmon's spiritual advisor, stated that Sigmon had expressed both remorse and a desire to serve as a testimony against violence.
However, Ricky Sims, the grandson of Sigmon's victims, has condemned the appeals, calling them 'delay tactics'.
"He took away two people who would have done anything for their family. They didn’t deserve this," Sims said.
No South Carolina governor has granted clemency to a death row prisoner since 1976, and McMaster is expected to make his decision only moments before the scheduled execution.
If no last-minute intervention occurs, Sigmon will become the first person executed by firing squad in the US since 2010, reigniting the debate over capital punishment and execution methods in the country.
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