South Carolina is set to execute another inmate by firing squad, one month after first such execution in decades

South Carolina is set to execute another death row inmate by firing squad, a little more than a month after a convicted murderer was executed the same way. 

The March 7 execution of Brad Sigmon marked the first execution by firing squad since 2010. Before Sigmon, only three people i the U.S. had been executed by firing squad since the 1970s. 

Mikal Mahdi is set to be executed on Friday, April 11. He chose firing squad over lethal injection or electrocution, just as Sigmon did. 

Mahdi, 41, was convicted of the 2004 death of Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers. Authorities said that Mahdi had killed a store clerk in North Carolina and stole a vehicle at gunpoint in Columbia when he hid in Myers’ shed at his Calhoun County farm after he couldn’t buy gas for the stolen car.

Myers was shot eight or nine times. His wife found his burned body in the shed, which had been the backdrop for their wedding 15 months earlier. Mahdi was arrested several days later in Myers’ unmarked police truck in Florida.

Mahdi also pleaded guilty to shooting Winston-Salem, North Carolina, convenience store clerk Christopher Boggs twice in the head three days before Myers was killed. He was sentenced to life in prison for Boggs’ death.

South Carolina’s highest court rejected Mahdi’s last major appeal earlier this week. Mahdi’s lawyers argued that his original attorneys put on a shallow case trying to spare his life and failed to call on relatives and others who knew him in his sentencing defense, but the state Supreme Court ruled that many of those arguments had been made in earlier, also unsuccessful appeals. 

South Carolina is legally required to keep some protocols for the execution method secret, but Sigmon’s death last month reveals a few key details. Here’s what to know about how the execution will go. 

Mahdi will wear black, have a target on his chest  

The execution process will begin just before 6 p.m. Friday, when the prison warden calls Governor Henry McMaster and asks if he is granting clemency. The warden will also ask the Attorney General’s Office if there are any legal blocks to the execution. 

If both answers are no, Mahdi will enter the death chamber at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, the same prison where Sigmon was put to death. He will likely wear black jogging pants and a T-shirt, as Sigmon did, instead of the green prison jumpsuits usually worn by death row inmates. There will be a target with a red bull’s-eye on his chest. 

Mahdi will then be secured to a chair, with straps around his waist, ankles and arms. Then a curtain to the witness room will open. The right side of Mahdi’s face and body will be toward the window. 

Mahdi’s lawyer or a prison official can read a final statement, if he wishes. A hood will then be placed on his head by a prison employee, who will then walk across the room and open a black pull shade covering the rectangular window where three volunteer shooters are waiting. 

All three volunteers are prison employees. Not much is known about them. Prison officials said they have “completed all required training.” A shield law passed in 2023, in part to keep the name of any supplier of lethal injection drugs secret, also keeps secret many details about the firing squad, including the names of anyone on the execution team and what specific training they received.

The three volunteers will hold rifles about 15 feet from Mahdi. There won’t be any kind of countdown before the three open fire. Shortly afterwards, a doctor with a stethescope will come out to confirm Mahdi is dead. Witnesses will sign an official document stating they saw the execution, then leave. 

Specialty bullets designed to destroy the heart

While few details about the volunteer shooters have been made public, a few details about firing squad protocols came out in 2022 during an unrelated trial that ultimately led the state Supreme Court to rule the firing squad, electric chair and lethal injection were all legal and didn’t violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. 

The state will use .308-caliber Winchester 110-grain TAP Urban ammunition often found in police rifles, said Colie Rushton, the director of Security and Emergency Operations at the Corrections Department.

The round is designed to break apart as soon as it hits something firm, in this case the prisoner’s rib cage. Fragments will spread out, and the intent is to destroy as much of the heart as possible.

A medical expert for the state said at the 2022 trial that if the heart is heavily damaged an inmate would lose consciousness almost immediately and likely not feel pain. The doctor said survivors of gunshots often report first feeling like they were punched and pain only following a few seconds later.

But a doctor testifying for inmates said it could take longer for an inmate to lose consciousness. He said that, anyone who has broken a rib knows, breathing becomes extremely painful once the bones in the chest are cracked.

If the aim of the executioners is not true, death could take even longer. Damaged hearts can continue to pump blood.

The information released by the state to the public gives no indication what might happen if an inmate survives the initial shots. At the 2022 trial, a doctor testifying on behalf of inmates said his review of protocols indicated the squad could fire again.

“There was no sound” 

Jeffrey Collins, one of three media witnesses for the firing squad execution of Brad Sigmon, detailed his experience in an essay published by the Associated Press. He described many of the details listed above, including Sigmon’s black clothing and the lack of warning for witnesses before the shots were fired. 

“There was no warning or countdown. The abrupt crack of the rifles startled me,” Collins wrote. “And the white target with the red bullseye that had been on his chest, standing out against his black prison jumpsuit, disappeared instantly as Sigmon’s whole body flinched.” 

Collins described the site of the impact as a “jagged red spot about the size of the small fist.” 

“His chest moved two or three times. Outside of the rifle crack, there was no sound,” Collins continued. Sigmon was declared dead about two minutes later, he said. 

Collins noted that he will likely attend other firing squad executions at Broad River Correctional Institution, but did not specify if Mahdi was one of those cases.