A US state court has blocked the planned executions of two inmates by electrocution, saying they cannot be put to death until they truly have the choice of the firing squad option set out in the state's newly revised capital punishment law.
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The South Carolina Supreme Court halted this month's scheduled executions of Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, writing that corrections officials need to put together a firing squad so inmates can really choose between that or the electric chair.
The executions were scheduled less than a month after the passage of a new law compelling the condemned to choose between electrocution or a firing squad if lethal injection drugs are not available.
The statute is aimed at restarting executions after an involuntary 10-year pause that the state attributes to an inability to procure the drugs.
Prisons officials previously said they still cannot get hold of lethal injection drugs and have yet to put together a firing squad, leaving the 109-year-old electric chair as the only option.
"The department is moving ahead with creating policies and procedures for a firing squad," Chrysti Shain, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, said in a statement.
Lawyers for the two men have argued in legal filings that death by electrocution is cruel and unusual, saying the new law moves the state toward less humane execution methods.
They have also said the men have the right to die by lethal injection and the state has not exhausted all methods to procure lethal injection drugs.
Australian Associated Press
