South Carolina inmate to die by firing squad, Tennessee resumes executions with new drug
The lethal injection chamber at the Oklahoma State Penintentiary, May 7, 2010. / Credit: Josh Rushing via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 7, 2025 / 14:20 pm (CNA).
A South Carolina death row inmate is scheduled to die by firing squad on Friday and executions are set to resume in Tennessee with a newly approved lethal injection drug, with both executions coming as states move away from a long-used three-drug lethal injection combination.
At 6 p.m. on Friday, March 7, a firing squad will kill 67-year-old Brad Keith Sigmon, a man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001. He chose the firing squad method because he was worried about possible complications with other methods.
Beginning in the 1980s, execution by lethal injection has become the primary method for executions in most states that have the death penalty.
Lethal injections have historically been carried out in three steps: one drug to make the victim unconscious, a second to paralyze the body, and a third to stop the heart, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
But amid public pressure from opponents of the death penalty and moral qualms about taking human lives, many drug manufacturers stopped providing the medicine needed to carry out the lethal injections. In recent years many states have begun facing a shortage of drugs and an inability to obtain them.
Without access to those drugs, the states in which the death penalty is still practiced are moving to other forms of execution.
For example, in January of last year, Alabama became the first state to execute a man by forcing him to inhale nitrogen until he died. In a news conference, the spiritual adviser for Kenneth Eugene Smith — the convicted murderer who was executed — said Smith visibly struggled for his life for several minutes before dying and called the execution “torturous.”
“We saw minutes of someone heaving back and forth, we saw spit, we saw all sorts of stuff from his mouth develop on the mask, we saw this mask tied to the gurney and him ripping his head forward over and over and over again,” Rev. Jeff Hood said.
Alabama has executed three additional prisoners using nitrogen gas. Louisiana, which has only executed one person since 2002, is set to become the second state to use this method. Jessie Hoffman, a convicted murderer and rapist, is scheduled to die by inhaling nitrogen gas later this month.
South Carolina, meanwhile, has reintroduced the more antiquated execution methods of the electric chair and firing squads. Amid drug shortages for lethal injection and legal challenges against the new methods, executions were paused for about 13 years but resumed in 2024.
Tennessee, which has not executed any inmates for five years, will now begin executions with a single-drug injection. The first execution is scheduled for May.
Firing squad execution set for Friday
South Carolina on Friday will perform the first execution by firing squad in the United States since 2010, when Utah executed convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner with this method. At the time, this method of execution was rare. It has only been used three times in the country since 1977 but is still permitted in five states.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, expressed concern about South Carolina executing people with firing squads, issuing a statement asking: “How did we get here?”
“How does our society think this inhumanity is somehow acceptable?” Murphy said. “The reality is, those are the questions we should ask ourselves each time there is an execution, because the death penalty is contrary to human dignity and an affront to the sanctity of life.”
“The outrage we feel toward these execution methods is a reminder that over time, the system of capital punishment has become all the more deceptive to make executions appear more palatable, sterile, and ‘humane,’” she added. “But executions are never any of these things.”
Executions by firing squad could become more commonplace in Idaho as well. Although the method is legal under state law, it is not the primary form of execution. Lawmakers passed a bill to change that, making firing squads the primary method of execution. The legislation awaits action by the governor.
Executions resume in Tennessee
Tennessee paused all executions from 1960 through 2000, though it executed just over a dozen people between 2000 and 2020.
The state paused executions during the COVID-19 pandemic and then extended that pause until 2025 to review execution methods. That will end on May 22, when convicted murderer Oscar Smith is scheduled to be executed. Three additional inmates will be executed later this year.
Rick Musacchio, the executive director of the Tennessee Catholic Conference — which represents the bishops of the three dioceses in the state — told CNA that the state’s bishops have expressed their concerns about the death penalty with Gov. Bill Lee. The conference and the bishops met with the governor last week.
“We addressed life issues with the understanding that the pause on the death penalty for the review of protocols might be ending,” he said. “We reminded him that although the review of protocols had been completed there are still questions about the appropriateness of the state’s plans for carrying out executions. He said that he expected that legal challenges to executions would likely continue.”
Musacchio told CNA that “just as we recognize the human dignity that the unborn have as children of God, we also recognize that even those convicted of committing terrible crimes [are] also his children.”
“The death penalty is simply not necessary to protect the people of Tennessee,” he said.
Murphy, meanwhile, told CNA that the return of the death penalty to Tennessee is “disheartening.”
“For years, national trends of public opinion have been steadily moving away from capital punishment,” she said. “Now we need state leadership to follow suit. We need bold leadership toward a vision of justice that prioritizes the dignity of every person, no matter the harm one has caused or suffered.”
Murphy referenced Pope Francis’ opposition to the death penalty and cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which holds that the death penalty “is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (No. 2267).
