South Carolina inmates want executions paused while new lethal injection method is studied

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Lawyers for six death row inmates out of appeals in South Carolina are asking the state Supreme Court to give full consideration to the state’s new lethal injection rules as well as the electric chair and firing squad before restarting executions after an unintended 12-year pause. The inmates said judges should decide now if the state’s new lethal injection protocol using just the sedative pentobarbital as well as killing prisoners by electrocution or shots fired into the heart do not violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments. The shield law means South Carolina doesn’t have to reveal its protocols for lethal injection, but Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said it is essentially identical to how the federal government and several other states use pentobarbital alone to kill inmates. But the lawyers for the South Carolina prisoners said both the inmates waiting to die and the justices can’t just take Stirling’s word and need to be able to see and review the new rules so they can decide if lethal injections are reliable and effective.