Autopsy suggests South Carolina botched firing squad execution

The article stated that there were three shooters, and only two gunshot wounds. I seem to recall from the early '70s that firing squads of five people or so always secretly loaded one weapon with blanks. That way the shooters could all convince themselves that they were the one who had the blank if their conscience bothered them. Maybe these guys did the same thing but with only three shooters...

I think if you can't find someone with the fortitude to put a hole in the victim's brain stem at muzzle contact range (let's ask the people who pushed for this punishment, for example), and you have to go through all this procedure to alleviate "guilty consciences", maybe the whole idea isn't so great?
- While I agree with the conclusion, making a moral judgment based on a random persons guilty conscience isn't very reliable.
- We should switch to execution by strangling to death by hand. The judge has to conduct the execution.
Which is dumb because you can clearly tell whether you had the blank or not from the amount of recoil.
That is the protocol in Utah for firing squads, but not South Carolina
As for why Mahdi's body showed two wounds from the execution rather than three, a doctor noted in the comments section on the autopsy commissioned by the state that "it is believed that" two bullets went through one wound. Whereas in Utah, not all members of the state's firing squad shoot live bullets, in South Carolina, the rifles of all three shooters were supposed to be loaded with ammunition.
The two wounds on Mahdi's body were described in the autopsy as being almost exactly the same size. Pathologists who reviewed the report expressed doubt that two bullets went through precisely the same, small hole.
"I think the odds of that are pretty minuscule," Wigren said
(Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20250509155025/https://www.npr.org/2025/05/08/nx-s1-5389846/firing-squad-south-carolina-death-penalty-execution)
- Maybe their firing squad line up behind one another?
Three shooters just isn't enough.
- Funny, I think it's three too many.

This shows a number of things. First, how barbarian and backwards death penalty is. Second, Americans are not even good at shooting.

it's out of their culture's preferred shooting range, the elementary school
- Come on, everyone always mentions the elementary schools, but we have plenty of other gun ranges. High schools, colleges, workplaces, shopping malls...

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

So up to 15 seconds of agony is expected. Fucking barbarians.

And he suffered for 80.

If only they were told it was a bad idea of a multitude of reasons.

They don't care. Suffering is the point. They don't want to understand how both revoking due process and allowing cruel and unusual punishment will eventually bite them in the ass.

I am against the death penalty, it's a barbaric practice and not something a civilized country should do.

But for fucks sake, when you decide to have it, why not just heavily sedate someone first, with the help of an anesthesiologist or another medical professional?

Because no medical professional will do it.
It goes completely against the entire pride and ethics of that profession.
You don't put yourself through all the education required to become a physician, to then help kill people against their will.
- Met any anti-vax nurses? I guarantee you that you could find some medical professionals who would do it.
- I don't think overdosing someone on morphine or some such anaesthetic or drug requires a medical degree.
- That sounds nice but ignores mountains of readily available evidence to the contrary. Lethal injections are performed by physicians.
The cruelty is the point with these people.
- Revenge has to be the only point, considering that it is genuinely cheaper to imprison people for life than it is to go through death row appeals and execute them, even before you include the cost of botching executions and the lawsuits that stem from that. South Carolina choosing firing squad in this case was not only because its harder to botch, but because its virtually impossible to buy the drugs for lethal injection anymore. Even when available, they cost a fortune for the state to procure
  The death penalty is just to sate barbaric revenge instincts and nothing else. There is no logical point to it
with the help of an anesthesiologist or another medical professional
Usually medical professionals aren't involved because it's a violation of their oath to do no harm. So then these sadistic bumblefucks just do whatever they want.
Any medical professional would lose their licence if they participated in any way.
Honestly, with the amount of fent over there if I was on death row I'd rather get some smuggled in than risk a botched execution. No anesthesiologist needed.

It's a lesser point but still...

At less than five meters they managed to not hit his heart but they did manage to hit his pancreas and liver.

This is two people aiming at a static target, a human being, not moving, and you still managed to get that far off

For the gun touting maniacs that they are, Americans really suck at aiming

Who says they wanted to hit the vital spots?
Cops are awful shots as a rule, because their firearms training requirements are almost nonexistent. I've never met an officer of the law at a gun range who could shoot as accurately as me and I only spend a couple hundred rounds per year practicing, which is apparently more than 4x as is required to qualify as a police officer.

They're doing firing squad executions still?

Jesus Christ.

Recently some states have brought it back specifically. No points for guessing which way those states lean politically.
it's meant to be less shitty than the lethal injection etc.
of course, unless they fuck it up
- It's meant to be cheaper, not better. Finding and paying for the drugs has become more difficult.
Of all the ways to die, getting shot is among the quickest and least painful ones. I'd honestly probably choose that over drugs.
- Depends on the location, I'd rather not have them shoot my heart. Both options are inconsistent as fuck though

And in other news, South Carolina introduces bill for executions by dynamite to begin later this year.

This is how I want to go.

Is there any good reason why the rifles aren't firmly fixed to a stand so they point directly at the heart, with the shooters only pulling the trigger?

Even with something like that, going for the heart is just prolonging suffering, which is usually the point
People are different height and don't stand still just to name a few.
- You can adjust the stand and immobilize the people.

Michael Douglas in Falling Down: "Take shooting lessons, asshole."

Lol, Americans can’t even use their guns right

I'm pretty sure people sentenced to death get to choose their execution method, so this guy chose firing squad?

The death penalty is barbaric no matter how it's done, but if the state was going to put me to death then bleeding out in five minutes by firing squad seems a lot better than drug-induced tortured breathing for an hour.
Wouldn't everyone just choose old age or snu snu?

Why were they not aiming for the head? 2 headshots would have put him out of his misery instantly even if the 3rd person missed.

It's either because they want to pretend it's a civilized execution method by making it look better or because they want to keep the option of doing it wrong and making the victim suffer longer.

We know it takes very little fent to stop the heart and breathing. Why not just inject 10x that and have the person slip off in opium land? Seems straightforward and foolproof.

The article mentions only noticing 2 hits on the body. My understanding is that there is always 1 blank in a firing squad execution, to leave some amount of doubt in the minds of those pulling the trigger. I would point to that as to why there were only 2 bullet holes, but I would also expect everyone, from those quoted to the journalist writing the article, to know that, so now I have to second guess whether or not that is the case after all.

Edit: here

I would ask for any kind of source on that, instead of just repeating it like an urban legend. That's probably why they didn't include it in the article.
- A'ight. Here you go.
This would only work if the people in the firing squad had never shot a gun before. There's no recoil with blanks. You'd be able to immediately tell.