South Carolina turns to firing squads for death-row executions after lethal injection runs out

The state of South Carolina is set to add a firing squad to its execution methods amid a lack of lethal injection drugs.

Officials said the measure was meant to jump-start executions in a state that once had one of the busiest death chambers in America.

A bill authorising firing squads or the electric chair to be used when lethal injections are unavailable was approved by both chambers in the state legislature this week.

Now it will go to Henry McMaster, the Republican governor, for final approval. He has said he will sign it.

Justin Bamberg, a Democrat state politician, said there were "three living, breathing human beings with a heartbeat that this bill is aimed at killing."

South Carolina is one of nine states that still use the electric chair.

It will become only the fourth state to allow a firing squad. The others are Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.

The last execution in South Carolina was 10 years ago because under its existing law, inmates are given the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair.

With South Carolina's supply of lethal injection drugs expired and the state unable to buy any more, inmates have been choosing that option, effectively buying themselves more time to appeal.

Three of the 37 inmates on its death row have since exhausted the appeal process and prison officials will now be allowed to use the electric chair or firing squad in the absence of the drugs.

Weston Newton, a Republican state politician, said: "Those families of victims to these capital crimes are unable to get any closure because we are caught in this limbo stage."

Since the US reinstated the death penalty in 1977 three inmates have been executed by firing squad, all in Utah.

Nineteen inmates have died in the electric chair this century.

In March, Virginia became the first state in the US South to abolish the death penalty.