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Revealed: Autopsy suggests South Carolina botched firing squad execution (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by pelespirit@sh.itjust.works to c/politics@sh.itjust.works

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A South Carolina firing squad botched the execution of Mikal Mahdi last month, with shooters missing the target area on the man’s heart, causing him to suffer a prolonged death, according to autopsy records and his attorneys.

Mahdi, 42, was shot dead by corrections employees last month in the second firing squad execution this year in South Carolina. The state has aggressively revived capital punishment over the last seven months and brought back the controversial firearm method that has rarely been used in the modern death penalty era.

Autopsy documents and a photo reviewed by the Guardian, along with analysis commissioned by Mahdi’s lawyers, suggest the execution did not occur according to protocol, and that Mahdi endured pain beyond the “10-to-15 second” window of consciousness that was expected.

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[–] Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The methods of capital punishment are often chosen for those administering and witnessing it, not so much for the condemned. Because yes, you could have shot him in the head and destroy the brain/stem causing immediate death, but headshots with rifles cause extreme amounts of gore and viscera.

The electric chair, lethal injection, gas chambers, etc all leave the body mostly whole, and the desire is minimal cleanup. Unlike more classic executions like beheading, crushed by elephants, breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, drawing and quartering, etc that were (by design) agonizing deaths and extremely messy.

The British used to hang people for almost anything, and they go so proficient at long drop hanging there was a calculation so the neck broke causing immediate death, but their head wouldn’t pop off too.

I’d highly recommend Discipline and Punish by Focault, he does a solid job chronicling how we ‘reformed’ the death penalty for the living’s sake.