Death row inmate who killed South Carolina police officer to die by firing squad
Execution of Mikal Mahdi scheduled for April 11
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WBTV) - A death row inmate convicted of killing a South Carolina police officer more than 20 years ago has decided how he will die.
Mikal Mahdi had until March 28 to choose how he wanted to be executed, and chose death by firing squad, according to an Associated Press report. His decision came just three weeks after another death row inmate, Brad Sigmon, died by the same method.
Death by firing squad is one of three execution methods in South Carolina, with the other two being lethal injection and electric chair.
“Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” one of Mahdi’s lawyers, David Weiss, said in a statement to the AP. “Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney.”
The AP reported that Mahdi’s death sentence came after he was convicted of killing Officer James Myers in Orangeburg, S.C. in July 2004. The AP said Myers had just gotten home after being out of town when Mahdi killed him. Myers’ wife found his body burned inside a shed and shot at least eight times.
Per South Carolina law, Mahdi had to submit his chosen method of execution 14 days prior to the execution date. His is scheduled for April 11, which made March 28 the deadline. Had he not submitted his choice, he would have died in the electric chair as it is the state’s default mode of execution.
When his execution date arrives, Mahdi will be strapped into a chair with a hood over his head. A target will be placed over his heart. Once the target is placed and the execution order is read, a three-person firing squad will fire one shot each from 15 feet away. A doctor will then have to declare him dead.
Mahdi’s execution will happen at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, where he is currently housed.
Mahdi is set to die just five weeks after Sigmon was shot to death on March 7. If his execution goes through as scheduled, Mahdi will be the fifth South Carolina inmate put to death in the past seven month, according to the AP. The three before Sigmon all chose lethal injection.
Prior to Sigmon’s execution, only three inmates in the United States had been killed by a firing squad since 1976, the AP reported. All three were in Utah, with the last coming in 2010.
Related: South Carolina man executed by firing squad in first such execution in 15 years
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