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South Carolina Supreme Court rules state death penalty including firing squad is legal

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South Carolina Supreme Court rules state death penalty including firing squad is legal
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South Carolina Supreme Court rules state death penalty including firing squad is legal

2024-08-01 03:38 Last Updated At:03:40

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina can execute death row inmates by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair, the state’s high court ruled Wednesday, opening the door to restart executions after more than a decade.

All five justices agreed with at least part of the ruling. But two of the justices said they felt the firing squad was not a legal way to kill an inmate and one of them felt the electric chair is a cruel and unusual punishment.

In the U.S., 27 states allow the death penalty, but only seven have executed inmates in the past three years as attorneys and advocates argue over excessive pain, proper procedures and the legality of new methods, such as suffocation by nitrogen gas or firing squads that have rarely been used outside the military.

“We start by acknowledging the reality that there is simply no elegant way to kill a man,” Justice John Few wrote in the majority opinion.

South Carolina allowing inmates to choose from the three execution methods is far from an effort to inflict pain but a sincere attempt at making the death penalty less inhumane, Few wrote.

As many as eight inmates may be out of traditional appeals. It is unclear when executions could restart or if there will be appeals.

“We are currently evaluating the next steps in the litigation and remain committed to advocating for the protection of our clients’ rights,” said Lindsey Vann, an attorney for Justice 360, an advocacy group for inmates.

South Carolina can carry out any of the three methods as soon as the state Supreme Court issues an execution order, Corrections Department Director Bryan Stirling said.

“Choice cannot be considered cruel because the condemned inmate may elect to have the State employ the method he and his lawyers believe will cause him the least pain,” Few wrote.

South Carolina has executed 43 inmates since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. Nearly all inmates have chosen lethal injection since it became an option in 1995.

South Carolina hasn’t performed an execution since 2011. The state’s supplies of drugs for lethal injections expired and no pharmaceutical companies would sell more if they could be publicly identified. The justices said the state was allowed to use one drug instead of three after a shield law passed in 2023 allowed officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers secret and get the sedative pentobarbital in September.

Lawmakers authorized the state to create a firing squad in 2021 to give inmates a choice between it and the same electric chair that state bought in 1912. The inmates sued, saying either choice was cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Constitution.

Four of the five justices agreed that all three methods aren't considered cruel under the state constitution. Justice John Kittredge said he would rule the firing squad was illegal because it was unusual — it has been available since South Carolina became a state but never used.

Chief Justice Don Beatty said the electric chair and firing squad are both cruel. A firing squad would leave a bloody scene and there would be no assurance that the three executioners would precisely target the heart, he said. The electric chair is rarely used anymore because it's painful and disfiguring, with “prisoners being engulfed in flames, suffering extensive burns, and bleeding prior to death," Beatty said.

Beatty compared the electric chair to burning someone at the stake.

“The only difference, in my view, is the ‘modernization’ in the last century of the means of ignition — from a match to electric current. The end result of the process, for all intents and purposes, remains the same,” Beatty wrote.

The justices said the prison director still must provide proof the lethal injection drug is stable and correctly mixed. Inmates can sue if they disagree with the determination and the court promised a prompt decision.

South Carolina has 32 inmates on its death row. Four prisoners are suing, but four more have also run out of appeals, although two of them face a competency hearing before they could be executed, according to Justice 360.

Gov. Henry McMaster said the justices interpreted the law correctly. “This decision is another step in ensuring that lawful sentences can be duly enforced and the families and loved ones of the victims receive the closure and justice they have long awaited,” he said in a statement.

The state said in its argument before the state Supreme Court in February that lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad all fit existing death penalty protocols. “Courts have never held the death has to be instantaneous or painless,” wrote Grayson Lambert, a lawyer for the governor’s office.

South Carolina used to carry out an average of three executions a year and had more than 60 inmates on death row when the last execution was carried out in 2011. Since then, successful appeals and natural deaths have lowered the number to 32.

Prosecutors have sent only three new prisoners to death row in the past 13 years. Facing rising costs, the lack of lethal injection drugs and more vigorous defenses, they are choosing to accept guilty pleas and life in prison without parole even in some cases where a convicted murderer was originally sent to death row by a jury.

FILE - This undated photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state's death chamber in Columbia, S.C., including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. Quincy Allen, 44, was taken off death row Monday, July 22, 2024, after agreeing to a life sentence when a federal court overturned his 2005 death sentence for killing two people in South Carolina. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP, File)

FILE - This undated photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state's death chamber in Columbia, S.C., including the electric chair, right, and a firing squad chair, left. Quincy Allen, 44, was taken off death row Monday, July 22, 2024, after agreeing to a life sentence when a federal court overturned his 2005 death sentence for killing two people in South Carolina. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP, File)

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Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight leaves more than 50 Palestinians dead

2025-04-03 16:19 Last Updated At:16:30

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Overnight strikes by Israel killed at least 55 people across the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said Thursday, a day after senior government officials said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and establish a new security corridor across the Palestinian territory.

Israel has vowed to escalate the nearly 18-month war with Hamas until the militant group returns dozens of remaining hostages, disarms and leaves the territory. Israel has imposed a month-long halt on all imports of food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left civilians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle.

Officials in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the strip, said the bodies of 14 people had been taken to Nasser Hospital – nine of them from the same family. The dead included five children and four women. The bodies of another 19 people, including five children aged between 1 and 7 years and a pregnant woman, were taken to the European hospital near Khan Younis, hospital officials said. In Gaza City, 21 bodies were taken to Ahli hospital, including those of seven children.

The Israeli military ordered the residents of several areas -- Shujaiya, Jadida, Turkomen and eastern Zeytoun -- to evacuate on Thursday, adding that the army “will work with extreme force in your area.” It said people should move to shelters west of Gaza City.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Israel was establishing a new security corridor across the Gaza Strip to pressure Hamas, suggesting it would cut off the southern city of Rafah, which Israel has ordered evacuated, from the rest of the Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu referred to the new axis as the Morag corridor, using the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, suggesting it would run between the two southern cities. He said it would be “a second Philadelphi corridor ” referring to the Gaza side of the border with Egypt further south, which has been under Israeli control since last May.

Israel has reasserted control over the Netzarim corridor, also named for a former settlement, that cuts off the northern third of Gaza, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow coastal strip. Both of the existing corridors run from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea.

“We are cutting up the strip, and we are increasing the pressure step by step, so that they will give us our hostages,” Netanyahu said.

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority, led by rivals of Hamas, expressed its “complete rejection” of the planned corridor. Its statement also called for Hamas to give up power in Gaza, where the militant group has faced rare protests recently.

Netanyahu’s announcement came after the defense minister, Israel Katz, said Israel would seize large areas of Gaza and add them to its so-called security zones, apparently referring to an existing buffer zone along Gaza’s entire perimeter. He called on Gaza residents to “expel Hamas and return all the hostages,” saying “this is the only way to end the war.”

Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave the territory.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel plans to maintain overall security control of Gaza after the war and implement U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to resettle much of its population elsewhere through what the Israeli leader referred to as “voluntary emigration.”

Palestinians have rejected the plan, viewing it as expulsion from their homeland after Israel’s offensive left much of it uninhabitable, and human rights experts say implementing the plan would likely violate international law.

The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages, most of whom have since been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Israel rescued eight living hostages and has recovered dozens of bodies.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say whether those killed are civilians or combatants. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The war has left vast areas of Gaza in ruins and at its height displaced around 90% of the population.

Separately, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in southwestern Syria, Syrian state media reported Thursday.

SANA said the nine were civilians, without giving details. Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were local gunmen from the Daraa province, frustrated with Israeli military encroachment and attacks in recent months.

Israel has seized parts of southwestern Syria and created a buffer-zone there, which it says is to secure Israel’s safety from armed groups. But critics say the military operation has created tensions in Syria and prevents any long-term stability and reconstruction for the war-torn country.

Israel also struck five cities in Syria late Wednesday, including over a dozen strikes near a strategic airbase in the city of Hama.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinians inspect a UN building after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

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