Supreme Court won’t halt firing squad execution of South Carolina inmate

The Supreme Court denied a death row inmate’s last-ditch effort to avoid execution Friday night, clearing the way for the first execution by firing squad in the United States in 15 years. 

Brad Sigmon, 67, who was convicted in 2002 of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s parents, chose the firing squad method instead of electrocution or lethal injection. 

The justices rejected his emergency motion to stave off his imminent execution in a brief order without any noted dissents. 

The order paves the way for South Carolina to carry out the firing squad execution as scheduled at 6 p.m. EST Friday, unless Sigmon receives a last-minute reprieve from Gov. Henry McMaster (R), who signed the law allowing for firing squad to again become a method of execution.

A jury sentenced Sigmon to death after he confessed to murdering David and Gladys Larke, the parents of Sigmon’s ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Barbare. Sigmon struck the parents with a bat multiple times in their home and later attempted to shoot Barbare, who escaped. 

His conviction and sentence have been upheld by multiple courts, including South Carolina’s top court. Sigmon’s latest appeal revolved around claims that the state’s “compressed election timeline and arbitrary denial of information” violates his due process rights. 

“If his execution is not stayed, he will be put to death without this Court having reviewed his claims, and without a reasonable opportunity to exercise the state-granted right to choose the least inhumane method of execution available to him,” Sigmon’s public defenders wrote in the application. 

In court filings, the state’s attorney general office urged the high court to deny Sigmon’s application, saying he waited until the eve of his execution to raise his arguments. 

“Sigmon brutally murdered his ex-girlfriend’s parents two decades ago, and he has litigated claims ever since, including how he might be executed for the past four years. If courts give him more delays, he will always have more claims. But at some point, the delays must end,” the state wrote. 

The Supreme Court rarely spares death row inmates from execution. Since the start of its term in October, the full court has rejected 10 such emergency applications.  

On its normal docket, however, the court late last month agreed to give death row inmate Richard Glossip a new trial after Oklahoma no longer stood behind its prosecution because of withheld evidence.