Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of South Carolina .
Between 1718 and 2024, more than 680 people have been executed in South Carolina. [1] Since the 1976 nationwide overturn of the ban on capital punishment, South Carolina has executed 47 people. [2]
Between 2011 and 2024, no one has been executed in the state due to pharmaceutical companies refusing to sell the drugs needed for lethal injections. Lethal injection has been the legalized primary form of execution since 1995, while the passage of Act 43 of 2021 allowed resumption of executions by electric chair as the primary form of execution. [3] In March 2022, the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced they were ready to carry out executions by firing squad. Inmates currently have the choice to be executed via electrocution or firing squad, with electrocution being the primary method. [4]
On July 31, 2024, the Supreme Court of South Carolina ruled that the death penalty was legal, including the execution methods of electrocution and firing squad, both approved by a majority of the judges, paving the way for the potential resumption of executions. A total of 29 inmates remained on death row in South Carolina as of March 2025. [5]
13 years after the last execution, these resumed with the state carrying out the death sentence of convicted killer Freddie Eugene Owens on September 20, 2024. [6] [7]
The first person to be executed by firing squad in the state was murderer Brad Sigmon on March 7, 2025. His execution came four years after the state first introduced firing squad as an alternative method. [8]
When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is not passed by the judge. The sentence is decided by the jury and must be unanimous.
In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued, even if a single juror opposed death; there is no retrial. [9]
The Governor of South Carolina has the power of clemency with respect to death sentences. [10]
The current methods of execution employed by the state are lethal injection, electrocution, and firing squad. [11] [12]
On January 30, 2019, the South Carolina's Senate voted 26–13 in favor of a revived proposal to restore the electric chair and add death by firing squad to its execution options. [13] [14] On May 14, 2021, Governor Henry McMaster signed into law Act 43 of 2021, restoring the electric chair as the default method of execution if lethal injection was unavailable, and added the firing squad as an option upon the offender’s request. This made South Carolina the first state to use a method other than lethal injection as its primary execution method since 2009, when Nebraska switched to that method from electrocution.
Murder with one of the following aggravating circumstances is the only crime punishable by death in South Carolina: [15]
South Carolina also provides for the death penalty for criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11 if the offender was a repeat offender, but under Kennedy v. Louisiana , it must involve the death of the minor (which is already a capital crime in South Carolina). [9]