The first prisoner executed in South Carolina in more than 10 years chose to die by shooting instead of in an electric chair.
Richard Bernard Moore, 57, is also the first prisoner in the United States to choose his method of execution after a law was passed last year that makes an electric shock by default, with the possibility of facing three prisoners with rifles instead.
He spent more than 20 years on the death penalty for the 1999 murder of an employee of a convenience store named James Mahoney in Spartanburg.
His execution is scheduled for April 29.
If that happens, he will be the first to be killed in the state since 2011.
The new law led to a decade-long hiatus, which correction officials blamed for failing to obtain the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections.
Moore’s lawyers have asked the state’s Supreme Court to postpone his death, while another court is deciding whether one of the two available methods is a cruel and unusual punishment.
They say prison staff are not working hard enough to get lethal injectable drugs, forcing inmates to choose between two other barbaric methods.
Moore’s lawyers are also asking the U.S. Supreme Court for an adjournment to allow the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider whether his death sentence is too harsh a punishment compared to such crimes.
State judges rejected a similar complaint last week.
The State Correctional Agency completed the development of procedures for the execution of the firing squads last month and spent $ 53,600 (£ 41,025) to repair Colombia’s death chamber, which included installing a metal chair with restraints facing a rectangular wall. 15 feet (4.6 m) away.
The death by shooting will involve three volunteer prisoners who use their rifles to shoot the convicted prisoner’s heart.
South Carolina is among the four states that allow the shooting, according to the Washington-based nonprofit Information Center Death Penalty.
This is one of the eight states that still use the electric chair.
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