Victims ‘need justice,’ McMaster says in denouncing court’s decision to stay executions

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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster decried the state Supreme Court’s decision to stay all upcoming executions until the state’s Department of Corrections could offer a firing squad as a method of execution.

The Republican governor told reporters Thursday morning that he disagreed with the decision, which was issued by the state’s highest court Wednesday, two days before South Carolina’s first execution in a decade was schedule to be carried out.

“I think the law has been passed and it is sound,” McMaster said. “I know the families involved here, the victims, need justice and closure. We intended for this law to accomplish that.”

McMaster was referring to the state’s newly updated execution law, which lawmakers passed in May in order to grant the state Department of Corrections the ability to carry out an execution.

Under the old state law, South Carolina’s default method of execution was lethal injection. The state could also offer the electric chair as a method of execution, but unless an inmate specifically selected to die in the electric chair, the state could not force them to do so.

In recent years ago, drug companies cracked down on how their products were being used and stopped selling the necessary drugs for the lethal injection to prison bureaus across the country.

As a result, South Carolina has been able to purchase the drugs and therefore could not carry out executions by lethal injection. Three inmates received stays of execution because the state did not have the means to put them to death.

Lawmakers changed the execution law to make the electric chair the default method of execution, but added a provision to state law to allow inmates to chose the firing squad or the lethal injection if those methods are available.

After the bill was passed into law, two inmates — Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens — were scheduled to be executed by the end of June. At the time, the electric chair was the only method of execution the Department of Corrections had available.

The state Supreme Court ordered that the execution notices for Owens and Sigmon be vacated. The court said the inmates had a statutory right to choose their method of execution, and ordered the court’s clerk not to issue new execution notices until the state could offer the firing squad.

The Department of Corrections is currently in the process of setting procedures to carry out an execution by firing squad, Corrections spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said in a statement Wednesday.

“The department is moving ahead with creating policies and procedures for a firing squad,” Shain said. “We are looking to other states for guidance through this process. We will notify the court when a firing squad becomes an option for executions.”

Sigmon, who was scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Friday, was convicted in 2002 of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents, David and Gladys Larke. He beat the pair to death with a baseball bat in their Greenville County home, according to authorities. Sigmon also attempted to kidnap his ex-girlfriend, but she managed to escape, though she was shot in the foot.

Reporter Joe Bustos contributed to this report.