Brother of man executed by firing squad joins opponents of SC's death penalty

COLUMBIA -- Advocates against the death penalty gathered at the statehouse Wednesday while South Carolina courts continue to debate the constitutionality of the state’s recently amended execution statute and the fate of two Upstate men on death row.

Members of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty were joined by Randy Gardner, the brother of Ronnie Lee Gardner, the last man executed by firing squad in Utah in 2010, and other activists to speak out against the state's death penalty.

The group was dormant over most of the past decade while the state experienced a pause in executions but relaunched in 2021 after Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill that made electrocution the state’s primary method of execution and added the firing squad as a third option. They've since publicly spoken out against the new statute and executions of Spartanburg's Richard Moore and Greenville's Brad Sigmon and Freddie Eugene Owens.

“The true measure of justice is creating an environment, creating the space, where this barbaric measure and act are not perpetuated,” Meredith Matthews, a community organizer with SCADP, said during the event. “I say to all the lawmakers who are for the death penalty, where's the action when it comes for the need for social services for mental health? Where are the services and the funds for those victims that are claiming to be active on behalf of? Where is transformative and restorative justice?”

Refusing to reveal specifics: SC refuses to reveal how new firing squad will be used to kill those facing death penalty

Last week the executions of Moore and Sigmon were halted by the state Supreme Court after a circuit judge declined to dismiss a lawsuit challenging whether the state’s new execution law is constitutional. The higher court wrote it would provide a more detailed explanation on the decision but has yet to release more information.

Attorneys representing Moore, Sigmon, Owens and Gary Dubose Terry of Lexington in the civil case argue that electrocution and the state’s newly established firing squad are prohibited against the state’s constitution as cruel, unusual and corporal punishment. South Carolina is the only state to have electrocution as a default method of execution and the fourth to have a firing squad.

“I just don’t want people feeling like I felt, it’s a terrible feeling,” Gardner told The Greenville News. “You know, people say, 'Well, if your brother wouldn’t have killed somebody you wouldn’t be affected,' but it’s a feeling I’ve never had in my whole life.”

Gardner said he’s been speaking out against the death penalty at events for the past 11 years since his brother's execution.

“I used to do a lot more. It kind of takes over your life, but I really wanted to come to this because it’s the firing squad,” he said.

Ronnie Lee Gardner became the third person in Utah, as well as the country, to be executed by firing squad since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976. He was on trial in 1985 for the murder of Melvyn Otterstrom, a bartender from Salt Lake City, when he obtained a gun in court and shot and killed attorney Michael Burdell and injured Nick Kirk, a bailiff. It was this event that sent him to death row.

The younger Gardner was executed 25 years later in 2010 at age 49.

“My brother's chest was blown wide open, I have autopsies of my brother's body,” Randy Gardner told a crowd at the press event this week. “He had four holes in his chest and it just blew his whole back out. Why would you want to do that, why would you want to volunteer for stuff like that?”

Letter to the editor: Firing squad is 'Old West,' not 21st-century SC justice

While details for protocols for South Carolina’s firing squad are sparse, information provided by the Department of Corrections state that the firing squad will be comprised of three men, rather than Utah’s five-member squad.

Autopsies of Ronnie Gardner’s body are also presented as an exhibit in the case against South Carolina’s death penalty but are redacted from the court’s public record and cited as “highly inflammatory or otherwise potentially harmful.”

The report of examination from Utah’s Office of the Medical Examiner included in the lawsuit ruled Gardner’s manner of death a homicide. It recorded four entrance wounds in his left central chest, four exit wounds with shoring on the left side of the back and lead fragments found throughout the chest, heart and other internal organs.

The autopsy is accompanied by an expert affidavit from Dr. Jonathan Arden, a forensic pathologist who’s practiced for more than 35 years. Arden examined Gardner’s autopsy as well as dozens of executions by electrocution and other materials for his statement.

According to Arden’s analysis on the firing squad, an “abrupt cessation” of circulation caused by multiple concurrent rifle wounds to the heart does not cause immediate unconsciousness. Without direct injury to the brain, the person would remain conscious for at least 15 seconds and feel pain from extensive damage done to the skin, chest tissue, ribs and sternum.

“If the mechanism of death in firing squad execution is heart stoppage, then the state must concede that the prisoner would remain conscious for a minimum of about 15 seconds after being shot, during which time the person would experience excruciating pain,” Arden wrote.

Attorneys for men on death row: SC shouldn't execute until it tries to find injection drugs

In a report about Ronnie Gardner’s execution in Utah’s Desert News from 2010, family of Burdell, the slain lawyer, said they forgave Gardner and advocated against his death sentence.

"We put it behind us 25 years ago when it happened... "We didn't like that they kept saying he's being killed because he killed Mike. … This is the last thing (Burdell) would have wanted. I just hate that his family has to go through this now,” said Donna Taylor, a niece of Burdell's, in the report.

“They forgave him and they told them not to execute my brother. This lawyer would have been defending my brother,” Gardner told The News. “The state don’t like to listen to stuff like that. They don’t like victim’s statements when it goes against what they believe in.”

More information regarding the next steps in the civil case against the state’s death penalty statute are expected to come later this week following a status conference scheduled for Friday morning.

Kathryn Casteel is an investigative reporter with The Greenville News and can be reached at KCasteel@gannett.com or on Twitter @kathryncasteel.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: SC death penalty: Brother of man executed by firing squad joins opposition