A man in South Carolina, who is scheduled to die next week by shooting teams, again asks that his execution be postponed and prison officials release more information about the state’s deadly injection medicine and procedures.
Lawyers for Brad Sigmon said he is forced to choose a violent death by shooting a team because, without more information, he believes he could die an abusive death if he chose deadly injection.
Sigmon’s lawyer said autopsy results from Marion Bowmans 31 January released earlier this week showed that he needed twice as much dose of the deadly injection medicine typically used in other states and by the federal government, according to court papers filed on Wednesday to the state’s Supreme Court.
An autopsy for Richard Moore, executed on November 1, found that the same amount of pentobarbital was used to kill him over two doses given 11 minutes, according to his autopsy.
South Carolina’s execution law requires officials to keep secret of the doses of drugs used, how they are administered that supply pentobarbital and the names of members of execution staff. Due to the secrecy, it is not known whether the new procedures introduced last year require two doses of pentobarbital.
South Carolina has said its methods are similar to other conditions that use a dose of pentobarbital. In Georgia and Tennessee, only a 5 gram dose of the fabric is planned for the start of the execution. The autopsy results for Bowman and Moore showed that they had 10 grams of the deadly injection medicine in their systems.
Sigmon, 67, is scheduled to be killed on March 7. He was sentenced in baseball batball killing in 2001 by his ex-boyfriend parents in their home in Greenville County. Sigmon tried to kidnap his ex-boyfriend and admitted that he would probably kill her and then herself. He forced her into her car when she arrived at her parents’ home, but she jumped out of it as Sigmon drove and let go.
Sigmon’s lawyers also said they want the state to release more information about the deadly injection medicine, including how the drug is stored, its expiry date and details of how officials test it to ensure that its strength and purity.
They said Sigmon was forced to choose a brutal death in what would be the first execution of shooting teams in the United States since 2010 because he feared the state’s deadly injection procedure – if done wrongly – would leave him to drown from an accumulation of fluid in his lungs.
“Mr. Sigmon is performed in nine days by a method he chose by necessity, fear of a torture death and without the information needed to assess his alternatives, ”Sigmon’s lawyers wrote.
Earlier arguments that the state did not release enough information about the deadly injection medicine has been rejected by South Carolina Supreme Court after state officials said fluid is often found in the lungs of prisoners killed by fatal injection.
The state also cited accounts of witnesses and other evidence that the three inmates who were executed in the last six months of fatal injection did not show signs of consciousness or breathing after about a minute – even though they were not declared dead for over 20 minutes after the execution started.
Freddie Owens, the first inmate killed with the new protocols, denied an autopsy for religious reasons.
If the execution is carried out as planned, Sigmon must be attached to a chair in the death chamber and has a hood placed over his head and a goal placed above his heart. Three volunteers, all with live ammunition, would then shoot against him through a small opening about 15 meters (4.6 meters) away.
State law allows inmates to die by shooting teams, fatal injection or the electric chair. Sigmon’s lawyers said he didn’t choose the chair either because he said he wouldn’t be cooked alive.
“Brad Sigmon has repeatedly asked for the basic facts needed to determine if South Carolina’s drugs expired, diluted or spoiled. He has so far been denied. He chose the shooting team because he was unwilling to risk the long -lasting, torturous death that he fears his friends lasting. Mr. Bowman’s autopsy confirms that this fear was justified, “Lawyer Gerald” Bo “King wrote in a statement on Wednesday.