Richard Moore, 57, was due to be executed on April 29 for the murder of a supermarket clerk during an assault in 1999.
But since manufacturers refuse to provide the necessary ingredients for lethal injection, Moore had to choose between the electric chair and the firing squad. These are two unusual methods in the United States and that, according to his lawyers, violate the constitutional prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“We accede to this request and temporarily suspend the execution of the accused,” the Supreme Court declared, promising an “order that defines the details of the suspension” soon.
Moore would have been the first death row inmate executed in the state in more than a decade. He chose on Friday to die at the hands of a firing squad, made up of three volunteers from the prison administration, instead of the electric chair.
“The electric chair and the firing squad are outdated and barbaric methods of execution that have been abandoned by almost all American jurisdictions,” said Lindsey Vann, an attorney for Moore.
Electrocution has been used in seven of the 43 executions that have taken place in South Carolina since 1985, but has not been used since 2008.
The firing squad has been used only three times in the United States – always in the western state of Utah – since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment.
The entrance Execution of a prisoner by firing squad is suspended in the US was first published in diary TODAY.
