A South Carolina death row inmate who died by firing squad in April — the second in five weeks in the state to be killed via that method — suffered a prolonged death after shooters missed their target, his lawyers said.
Mikal Mahdi was killed last month by prison officials, but autopsy results, as well as photographs and documents obtained by The Guardian and analyzed by his legal team, indicated that executioners did not follow protocol and that Mahdi endured prolonged pain that outlasted the 10- to 15-second period of consciousness that is expected.
Madhi’s lawyers submitted their findings to the South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday.
He received the death sentence in 2006 and was shot dead on April 11. Those killed by firing squad have a bullseye target placed over their chest, at which three executioners must aim from a distance of roughly 4.6 metres while witnesses are stationed behind a sheet of bulletproof glass.
Madhi gave no final statement and did not look to his right toward the nine witnesses in the room behind bulletproof glass and bars, according to an Associated Press reporter, who was also a witness.
Before being shot, Madhi’s sight was obscured by a hood; he took a few deep breaths during the 45 seconds between when the hood was put over his head and when the shots rang out.
Mahdi, 42, cried out as the bullets hit him, and his arms flexed. A white target placed over his heart was pushed into the wound in his chest.
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He groaned two more times about 45 seconds after that. His breaths continued for about 80 seconds before he appeared to take one final gasp.
A doctor checked him for a little over a minute, and he was declared dead at 6:05 p.m., less than four minutes after the shots were fired.
Madhi’s death was the second by firing squad in just over a month in South Carolina. Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7, marking the first firing squad-style execution in the U.S. in 15 years and the fourth since 1976. The others all occurred in Utah.
South Carolina state law requires inmates to decide how they will be executed, and Sigmon chose to be put to death by firing squad. A doctor examined him about a minute later and Sigmon was declared dead in approximately 90 seconds.
His lawyer said he opted for this method because he was concerned about the use of lethal injections; recent post-mortem results indicated the use of higher-than-normal dosage amounts and medical complications in previously executed inmates.
On Jan. 31, inmate Mario Bowman was administered double the typical lethal injection dose. Most states use five grams of a combination of chemicals, but Bowman was given 10 grams of pentobarbital.
His autopsy revealed that he suffered from pulmonary edema, a collection of blood and fluid in the lungs.
Similarly, the autopsy of Richard Moore, who was executed on Nov. 1, 2024, revealed he was administered the same dose of pentobarbital, delivered in two separate shots, 11 minutes apart.
Though firing squad executions have recently made a resurgence in South Carolina, historically, the method was used to punish military mutinies and as a terror tactic in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Nonetheless, some South Carolina lawmakers see it as the quickest and most humane method, especially with the uncertainty in obtaining lethal injection drugs.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Mahdi’s lawyer, assistant federal public defender David Weiss, called the execution a “horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society.”
Like Sigmon, Mahdi had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection, or the electric chair.
“Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” Weiss said.
“Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney,” he concluded.
— With files from The Associated Press
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