Records obtained by the Guardian indicate shooters did not hit Mikal Mahdi according to protocol, which lawyers say caused prolonged suffering

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.

  • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    endured pain beyond the “10-to-15 second” window of consciousness that was expected.

    what?? just shoot them in the head, this is just plain brutality

    • Milk_Sheikh@lemm.eeEnglish
      10·
      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.

  • FoxyFerengi@lemm.eeEnglish
    10·
    2 days ago

    According to his lawyer, he chose this method because he thought it would be easier on the witnesses to the execution

    • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOPMEnglish
      14·
      2 days ago

      Mahdi’s lawyers said “a massive botch is exactly what happened”: “Mr Mahdi elected the firing squad, and this court sanctioned it, based on the assumption that SCDC could be entrusted to carry out its straightforward steps: locating the heart; placing a target over it; and hitting that target. That confidence was clearly misplaced.”

      “I don’t think any reasonable, objective observer can look at what happened and think we can keep setting execution dates,” David Weiss, Madhi’s lawyer who sat as a witness, said in an interview. “I heard Mikal’s cries of pain and agony, and I don’t want that to happen to somebody else.”

    • Geetnerd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      I’m convinced the lethal injection protocol used is designed to induce agony in the subject.

      Supposedly sedated to induce unconsciousness, paralyzed, then injected with sodium pentothal, which induces a heart attack. Multiple eye witnesses to many of these humane and painless executions stated the victim struggled, and was aware during the procedure.

      They could just overdose the subject with an opiate. But no, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?