South Carolina Supreme Court Rules State Death Penalty Including Firing Squad Is Legal

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Four prisoners are suing, but four more have also run out of appeals, although two of them face a competency hearing before they could be executed, according to Justice 360, a group that describes itself as fighting for the inmates and for fairness and transparency in death penalty and other major criminal cases.
44% : Nearly all inmates have chosen lethal injection.
44% : The state's supplies of drugs for lethal injections expired and no pharmaceutical companies would sell more if they could be publicly identified.
43% : South Carolina used to carry out an average of three executions a year and had more than 60 inmates on death row when the last execution was carried out in 2011.
42% : The state said in its argument before the state Supreme Court in February that lethal injection, electrocution and firing squad all fit existing death penalty protocols.
41% : Since then, successful appeals and natural deaths have lowered the number to 32.Prosecutors have sent only three new prisoners to death row in the past 13 years.
39% : COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the state's death penalty, which now includes a firing squad as well as lethal injection and the electric chair, is legal.

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