South Carolina mulls electric chair as only option for condemned

COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina once had one of the county’s highest rates of execution, even putting two prisoners to death in one night.

But now the state hasn’t executed a prisoner in nine years and currently lacks the drugs to carry out lethal injections for any of the 37 inmates on the state’s Death Row.

Some lawmakers are pushing to give the state an option to start executing prisoners again by giving them no choice but to go to the electric chair.

“We have to have a method in which to carry out the sentences of the court,” said Republican Rep. Eddie Tallon, a retired state agent from Spartanburg who was the lead investigator in the case that sent South Carolina serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins to the electric chair in 1991 after he killed at least 14 people.

Currently, condemned South Carolina prisoners have a choice between lethal injection or electrocution, with lethal injection as the default if they do not pick.

The bill being considered by the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday forces inmates to be electrocuted if lethal injection is not available, like the current situation where South Carolina’s supply of lethal injection drugs expired and no pharmaceutical companies will sell them any more without a guarantee they won’t be publicly identified.

Opponents of the bill said electrocution is barbaric and South Carolina acknowledged that when it allowed lethal injection in 1995.

Democratic Rep. Justin Bamberg asked the committee at a meeting last week if any members ever watched an execution, either in the electric chair or by lethal injection. No one raised their hands.

“I’ve done legal work where lineman have been electrocuted and you don’t forget seeing that,” the Democratic lawyer from Bamberg said.

Jeffrey Collins is an Associated Press writer.