South Carolina executes man by firing squad, in state’s third such killing in year

South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday, marking the third time the state has used gunfire to kill a person on death row despite growing backlash against the method. Stephen Bryant, 44, had been sentenced to death for the October 2004 killing of Willard “TJ” Tietjen and pleaded guilty to two other murders. Bryant’s lawyers had argued in final appeals that the sentencing judge had been unable to consider his brain damage from his mother’s alcohol and drug use during pregnancy, but South Carolina’s supreme court declined to halt the execution on Monday. Bryant made no final statement and briefly glanced at 10 witnesses in the execution chamber before prison officials placed a hood over his head, according to the Associated Press, one of the media observers. There were three prison shooters in the room, and shots rang out roughly 55 seconds later. After the bullets were fired, Bryant made no noise and a red bulls-eye target that had been placed on his heart flew forward off his chest, the AP reported. He appeared to take a few shallow breaths and then experienced a final spasm a little over a minute later, with a doctor pronouncing him dead at 6.05pm. South Carolina has revived executions over the last year and has now killed seven people in rapid succession after a 13-year pause in capital punishment. In March, the state conducted its first firing squad execution, a method human rights advocates have called “barbaric”, which had not been used anywhere in the US in 15 years. Bryant’s lawyers claimed he did not receive a full brain scan before his 2008 trial, which could have identified damage, the AP reported. His attorneys have said the brain damage was compounded by “appalling physical and sexual abuse committed by several family members” during childhood, arguing his counsel at sentencing “ignored myriad red flags of his brain damage”. The South Carolina attorney general’s office contended Bryant’s brain damage claims were irrelevant, saying Bryant was “methodical, cunning, and took pleasure” in his crimes, including the “gratuitous infliction of horror on Mr Tietjen’s family”. “The character of the defendant and the circumstances of the crimes weigh in favor of the harshest punishment,” the state’s lawyers wrote. Investigators said Bryant had burned Tietjen’s eyes with cigarettes and painted taunting messages with his blood. “Tonight, South Carolina gave Mr Bryant his final wounds in a lifetime of suffering,” Bo King, his lawyer, said in a statement after the execution, recounting his upbringing marked by abuse and neglect. “Mr Bryant’s impairments left him unable to endure the tormenting memories of his childhood. When these traumas pushed him to mental collapse, he pleaded for professional help. He was refused care by our broken mental health system because he could not afford the fee of $75.” His lawyers had previously noted in court filings that he was turned away from treatment shortly before the killings due to the cost. “Mr Bryant’s final wish was that no other person in need of aid face that rejection. That is consistent with the man we knew, who showed grace and courage in forgiving his family and great love for his those in and outside of his prison. We will remember his unlikely friendships, his fierce protectiveness, and his love for nature, the water, and the world,” added King, the chief of the capital habeas unit for the fourth circuit, which is part of the federal public defender’s office. South Carolina death row defendants are now directed to select how they will be killed – electric chair, lethal injection or gunfire. While lethal injection is the most common method in the US states that have continued executions, there have been growing concerns that the use of pentobarbital, a sedative, can cause a prolonged and excruciating death. In a recent pentobarbital execution in Tennessee, records showed the man’s lungs became swollen with fluid, a condition that death row lawyers say causes a feeling of suffocation and drowning. Brad Sigmon, the first man to be killed by firing squad in South Carolina this year, chose gunfire because he was concerned by reports that the three men executed before him, whom he knew well, had experienced painful deaths that took more than 20 minutes, his attorneys said at the time. He preferred gunfire to being “burned … alive” by electrocution. Lawyers for Mikal Mahdi, the second man shot to death by South Carolina officials, said he chose the “lesser of three evils”. Mahdi’s lawyers said his autopsy showed the execution was botched, with the shooters allegedly missing the target area on his heart, causing a prolonged death. State corrections’ officials disputed the lawyers’ claims, saying the autopsy showed the shooters struck his heart before hitting other organs. The attorney general’s office declined to comment before the execution. Chrysti Shain, South Carolina corrections spokesperson, referred to her past statements that the firing squad did not miss Mahdi’s heart. She said accounts of the state’s recent lethal injection executions suggested the men “stopped breathing after a short time period”. With Bryant’s execution, South Carolina has cemented its status as a leader of firing squad killings. Under the modern death penalty over the last five decades, Utah is the only other state to execute three people with gunfire, with its last firing squad killing in 2010. Idaho is moving to make firing squads its primary execution method, and killings by gunfire are still legal in Mississippi and Oklahoma. The Rev Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in an interview before the execution that people on death row face an “impossible choice”: “Do you choose being poisoned to death in a way that is akin to waterboarding, do you get cooked to death by electrocution, or do you get your heart blown out of your chest by a firing squad?” More gun violence was not the solution to crimes, Taylor argued, noting Bryant’s struggles to access treatment: “We’re never going to solve the problem of violence in South Carolina if we are not willing to prevent it from happening in the first place.” Bryant is the 50th person to be executed in South Carolina since the state restarted capital punishment four decades ago, according to the AP. He is the 43rd person in the US to be put to death in 2025 so far. Tremane Wood, a 46-year-old man on death row in Oklahoma, was spared moments before his scheduled lethal injection on Thursday when he was granted clemency.