A convicted double murderer in the United States, Brad Sigmon, was on Friday executed in South Carolina.
According to the South Carolina Department of Corrections, the execution of the 67-year-old by firing squad was the first of its kind in the US since 2010.
Sigmon was pronounced dead at 6:08 p.m. ET at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.
His execution was only the fourth carried out by firing squad in the US since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Sigmon was convicted of beating his ex-girlfriend’s parents, William and Gladys Larke, to death with a baseball bat at their home in the town of Taylors, South Carolina, in 2001.
He chose the firing squad over lethal injection or the electric chair, the two other execution methods permitted by South Carolina law.
In his final statement, shared through his lawyer, Sigmon called for an end to the death penalty, saying, “I want my closing statement to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.” He quoted Bible passages that emphasised forgiveness, adding, “Nowhere does God in the New Testament give man the authority to kill another man.”
According to CNN, his attorney, Gerald “Bo” King, condemned the execution, calling it “horrifying and violent.” He stated, “He chose the firing squad knowing that three bullets would shatter his bones and destroy his heart. But that was the only choice he had, after the state’s three executions by lethal injection inflicted prolonged and potentially torturous deaths on men he loved like brothers.”
King described Sigmon as “a man who has devoted himself to his faith, and to ministry and service to all around him” and noted that he had committed no acts of violence during his 23 years in prison.
He also criticised the state’s failure to provide information on the lethal injection drugs, saying, “Brad only wanted assurances that these drugs were not expired, or diluted, or spoiled — what any of us would want to know about the medication we take, or the food we eat, much less the means of our death.”
Ahead of the execution, protesters gathered outside the prison, holding banners with messages such as “All Life is Precious” and “No More Killing.”
Sigmon’s attorneys had filed a last-minute clemency petition with South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, arguing that he committed his crimes “while in the grip of an undiagnosed, inherited mental illness.” The request was denied.
The US Supreme Court also declined to halt the execution. In a Wednesday filing, Sigmon’s attorneys argued that South Carolina’s “compressed election timeline and arbitrary denial of information relating to the South Carolina Department of Corrections lethal injection drugs violate Due Process.” However, the court did not provide an explanation for its decision.
According to the state’s execution protocols, the three-member firing squad used live rounds to carry out the execution.
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Dr. Jonathan Groner, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, stated that a firing squad execution is believed to cause “nearly instant unconsciousness and death from exsanguinating hemorrhage.”
He explained that bullets fired at the heart “would instantly stop the blood flow to the brain, which, like a cardiac arrest, causes rapid loss of brain function.”
Sigmon, the oldest person ever executed by South Carolina, received his special requested meal on Wednesday night, which consisted of an individual meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans.
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