Three volunteer South Carolina prison employees will be the firing squad used to execute condemned killer Brad Sigmon on Friday

When a South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat steps into the death row chamber Friday night, it won’t be lethal injection or electrocution that ends his life. It will be three people holding rifles about 15 feet (4.

Condemned South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon has chosen to die next month by a firing squad, a method of execution that has not been used in the U.S. in 15 years.

South Carolina is set to use a firing squad to execute Brad Sigmon, a rarely used killing method in the United States.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina man who is scheduled to die next week by firing squad is again asking that his execution be postponed and prison officials release more information about the state’s lethal injection drug and procedures.

Brad Sigmon, the condemned South Carolina prisoner, opted for firing squad over the state’s primary method of electrocution or the more widely used practice of lethal injection. “He’s made the best choice that he can, but the fact that he had to make it at all is horrifying,” said Sigmon’s lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King.

In 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that firing squad was a constitutional method of carrying out executions.

Brad Sigmon chose bullets over lethal injection or the electric chair, "which would burn and cook him alive," his attorney said.

Since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976, states have used five different execution methods: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad and hanging. Brad Sigmon is scheduled to die Friday in South Carolina.

South Carolina inmate Brad Sigmon has chosen to die by firing squad March 7, a first for the state after he raised doubts about its lethal injection protocol.