Death Penalty Under Fire: A Botched Execution Exposed

The Troubling Revival of Brutal Execution Methods

Firing Squads and Beyond: A Regression in Justice

The recent revival of old-school execution methods is one of the most distressing signs that the United States is moving backward. While other countries eliminate the death penalty, in the U.S., we have leaders champing at the bit to kill death row prisoners. In response to arguments that lethal injection methods have inflicted lingering and excruciating pain on the executed, those leaders have turned back the clock to methods they can pretend as relatively painless. But it’s all a farce. To be clear, there is no acceptable way to execute a living, breathing human being.

To be clear, there is no morally justifiable reason to do it. And there’s no reason to believe that executions make anybody safer.

The Illusion of “Painless” Death: Exploding the Myth

The notion that any execution method can be truly painless is a dangerous illusion. The history of capital punishment is littered with botched executions, graphic accounts of suffering, and lasting psychological trauma for both the condemned and those who witness the act.

Global Reversal: The US Stands Alone in its Embrace of Capital Punishment

The United States remains an outlier on the global stage, clinging to the death penalty while the vast majority of countries have moved away from it. Over the past two decades, more than 100 countries have abolished capital punishment, recognizing its inherent cruelty and fallibility.

South Carolina’s Execution Nightmare: A Case Study in Failure

A Choice Between Evils

South Carolina’s recent execution of Mikal Mahdi serves as a horrifying case study in the inherent brutality of capital punishment. Faced with a choice between lethal injection, firing squad, or electrocution, Mahdi’s attorneys argued that he was offered “barbaric and inhumane choices.”

Mahdi ultimately chose the firing squad, believing it to be a less agonizing option than the other methods available.

A Botched Execution and a Gruesome Reality

But the execution did not go as planned, raising serious questions about the state’s ability to carry out even its chosen method of death humanely.

An autopsy revealed that only two of the three bullets fired by the execution squad struck Mahdi’s body, and neither hit his heart directly.

“He’s not going to die instantaneously from this,” Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the defense team’s autopsy documents for Morningpicker, stated.

“I think that it took him some time to bleed out.”

David Weiss, an attorney for Mahdi who witnessed the execution, described the event as “horrifying.”

“The autopsy confirms what I saw and heard,” Weiss said in a statement. “Mikal suffered an excruciating death. We don’t know what went wrong, but nothing about his execution was humane. The implications are horrifying for anyone facing the same choice as Mikal. South Carolina’s refusal to acknowledge their failures with executions cannot continue.”

The Inconsistency of “Humane” Executions

The events in South Carolina highlight the fundamental flaw in the concept of “humane” executions. The idea that a state can inflict death with minimal suffering is a dangerous delusion.

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled last year that a firing squad was an acceptable form of punishment because even if it did cause excruciating pain, “the pain will last only ten to fifteen seconds.”

However, when Jessie Hoffman, who was condemned to die in Louisiana, expressed his belief that nitrogen gas would be torturous and unnecessary cruel and that a firing squad would be better, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his claim.

“That can’t be right,” the court stated.

This inconsistency demonstrates the deeply subjective and ultimately arbitrary nature of defining “humane” execution. What one court deems acceptable, another may find barbaric.

The state of Louisiana ultimately killed Hoffman with a method that it doesn’t allow for the euthanization of dogs and cats. The gas started flowing at 6:21 p.m. on March 18, Louisiana officials reported.

John Simerman, a staff writer for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate who witnessed Hoffman’s execution, wrote that Hoffman “never regained consciousness, never made a sound, never moved.”

While Hoffman’s execution may not have been as graphic as some other methods, it was nonetheless a cruel and inhumane act that underscored the inherent barbarity of the death penalty.

Mikal Mahdi’s Choice: A “Lesser of Three Evils”

The recent revival of old-school execution methods is one of the most distressing signs that the United States is moving backward. While other countries eliminate the death penalty, in the U.S., we have leaders champing at the bit to kill death row prisoners. In response to arguments that lethal injection methods have inflicted lingering and excruciating pain on the executed, those leaders have turned back the clock to methods they can pretend as relatively painless. But it’s all a farce. To be clear, there is no acceptable way to execute a living, breathing human being. To be clear, there is no acceptable way to execute a living, breathing human being. There’s no morally justifiable reason to do it. And there’s no reason to believe that executions make anybody safer. But news out of South Carolina should cause us to focus on the way that state governments continue to insist that they can find a good way to kill people. That state told convicted murderer Mikal Mahdi he could have his pick: death by lethal injection, firing squad or electrocution. “Faced with barbaric and inhumane choices, Mikal Mahdi has chosen the lesser of three evils,” one of his attorneys said March 28. “Mikal chose the firing squad instead of being burned and mutilated in the electric chair, or suffering a lingering death on the lethal injection gurney.”

The Autopsy Speaks: A Gruesome Reality of a Failed Execution

But it doesn’t appear that Mahdi got the near instantaneous death that he and the state wanted, the near-instantaneous death that a firing squad is supposed to guarantee. On April 11, a three-person firing squad fired at the target placed over Mahdi’s heart, but in court filings to the South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday, Mahdi’s attorneys pointed out that there were only two wounds on the cadaver’s body, and they say neither of the executioners hit his heart directly. “He’s not going to die instantaneously from this,” Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the defense team’s autopsy documents for Morningpicker, said. “I think that it took him some time to bleed out.” “The autopsy confirms what I saw and heard,” David Weiss, an attorney for Mahdi, who witnessed his execution, said in a statement. “Mikal suffered an excruciating death. We don’t know what went wrong, but nothing about his execution was humane. The implications are horrifying for anyone facing the same choice as Mikal. South Carolina’s refusal to acknowledge their failures with executions cannot continue.”

The Discrepancy in Accounts

Each of the three people in the firing squad was supposed to have a live round. In the attempt to explain why an autopsy that South Carolina commissioned found only two wounds, a doctor added a comment that says “it is believed that” two of the bullets entered the same wound. Mikal Mahdi. South Carolina Department of Corrections via AFP – Getty Images It is inconceivable that all the executioners missed directly hitting the condemned man’s heart but that two of them missed to the exact same degree. We should all feel insulted that a state government’s record suggests that’s what happened.

State’s Denial: A Pattern of Insufficient Transparency and Accountability

That South Carolina’s method of choice wasn’t as humane as advertised is less surprising when you consider that different courts can’t even agree on what constitutes a humane execution. The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled last year that a firing squad was an acceptable form of punishment because even if it did cause excruciating pain, “the pain will last only ten to fifteen seconds.” But when Jessie Hoffman, who was condemned to die in Louisiana, said that suffocating him by nitrogen gas would be torturous and unnecessarily cruel and that a firing squad would be better, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals answered bluntly, “That can’t be right.” And so the state of Louisiana killed Hoffman with a method that it doesn’t allow for the euthanization of dogs and cats. The gas started flowing at 6:21 p.m. on March 18, Louisiana officials reported. John Simerman, a staff writer for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate who witnessed Hoffman’s execution, wrote a chilling account for his newspaper, describing how Hoffman struggled for breath and gasped for air as the nitrogen filled the chamber. “He was clearly in pain,” Simerman wrote. “He was making sounds that were almost animalistic in their pleading for air.”

The Inconsistency in Judicial Reasoning

The lack of consistency in defining a “humane” execution highlights a fundamental flaw in the death penalty system: it is inherently incapable of delivering justice in a way that is both morally sound and legally defensible. There is no set of procedures, no matter how carefully crafted, that can guarantee a painless and dignified death. The very act of killing a human being, regardless of the method used, raises profound ethical questions that cannot be easily dismissed.

The Absence of Accountability

The cases of Mahdi and Hoffman also expose a disturbing pattern of insufficient transparency and accountability in the execution process. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, the state often attempts to downplay or obfuscate the facts. The secrecy surrounding these executions makes it difficult to hold those responsible accountable for their actions. It reinforces the public’s perception that the death penalty is a system shrouded in darkness and shrouded in injustice.