Sigmon had been convicted in 2001 of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat after a kidnapping plan went awry. He had also planned to kill his girlfriend and himself following a romantic weekend getaway. The Supreme Court and South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster both rejected Sigmon’s last-ditch appeals against the execution.
Sigmon had opted for execution by firing squad over lethal injection and the electric chair. His lawyer, Gerald King, mentioned that the choice was between these methods or facing death in South Carolina’s “ancient electric chair” that would cause “burning and cooking” him alive. However, King pointed out that lethal injection carried the risk of prolonged suffering as experienced by three previously executed men in South Carolina since September.
Executions in the US
Most executions in the US are conducted via lethal injection, with the last firing squad execution taking place in Utah in 2010. Idaho, Mississippi, and Oklahoma are the other states that allow the firing squad as an execution method.
This year has seen six executions already, following 25 in the previous year. Half of the US states have banned or put executions on hold. Alabama has recently used nitrogen gas in executions, causing death by suffocation, a method denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.
Edited by: Roshni Majumdar
