U.S. Firing Squad Executions Are Rare, but Their History Is Long

On Friday, a man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents in 2001 was executed by firing squad in South Carolina, in the first such execution in the United States in 15 years.

It was also the first such execution in South Carolina history. But for those who have been sentenced to death in the state, the option is available. A lawyer for the man said his client preferred to be shot because he was concerned about the state’s lethal injection process.

Death by firing squad has a long history in the United States. In the popular imagination, it is associated with the Wild West or the Civil War, but in modern times the method of execution is rare. The last time an inmate was killed that way in the United States was in 2010, in Utah.

That could be changing, and not only in South Carolina.

What is happening in South Carolina?

The state passed a law in 2021 that made death by firing squad a legal option for people on death row. The legislation was prompted, in part, by a supply shortage: South Carolina was having trouble procuring the drugs for lethal injection, which remains the most widely used method in states with capital punishment.

The law was challenged but ultimately upheld by the State Supreme Court, which decided last year that death by electrocution, firing squad or lethal injection could not be considered cruel or unusual because inmates could select the option that they considered the least painful.

On Friday, Brad Sigmon, 67, was executed by firing squad at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, the state capital. A three-person team shot three bullets at a target placed over his heart.

How many civilians have been executed by firing squads in the United States?

Since 1977, there have been four executions by firing squad, three in Utah and one in South Carolina.

Historical data suggests that more than 140 American inmates have been executed by shooting since 1608, though it is not clear how many involved firing squads. Of those, 40 were in Utah, more than any other state.

A sort of automated firing squad was used to kill a prisoner in Nevada more than a century ago, said Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University: In the execution of Andriza Mircovich in 1913, three rifles were fired simultaneously by a mechanism, so that no one had to pull a trigger.

Professor Denno has argued that firing squads are more humane than other methods of execution, in part because they are harder to botch than, say, lethal injections. But the practice has historically been more closely associated with the military than with civilian prisoners.

“I think it looks barbaric to people because it’s associated with our country’s history,” Professor Denno said. “It’s associated with military executions. It’s associated with wartime.”

What did firing squads look like during conflict?

During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate troops used firing squads to kill deserting soldiers. The executions were intended to inspire fear, as they were typically carried out in public.

“They were often done at a crossroads, some kind of field, some kind of public, open space — and that was the intention because they were largely directed against deserters,” said Mark M. Smith, the Carolina distinguished professor of history at the University of South Carolina, who argued against the legalization of firing squad executions in a 2023 affidavit for the South Carolina Supreme Court.

The deserters were typically shot simultaneously by three or more fellow soldiers — one of whom might have been issued blanks, rather than live rounds, as was the case in the 2010 Utah execution — to blur the lines of responsibility for the death.

The origins of firing squad executions are murky, Professor Smith said, adding that other countries use the practice too. In the United States, they appear to have been used against deserting soldiers as early as the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Still, he added, the practice was always somewhat rare, and newspaper articles suggested that witnesses were sometimes repulsed by the bloodshed.

Where are firing squads legal? And how do they work?

People on death row can choose to die by firing squads in Utah and South Carolina. Mississippi and Oklahoma allow the firing squad as a secondary method of execution, if lethal injection drugs cannot be obtained.

The same is true in Idaho, but Republicans in the State Senate recently introduced a bill that would make the firing squad the primary method of execution.

Each state can set its own protocol for the practice. In South Carolina, the Department of Corrections said in 2022 that death row inmates who chose that method of execution would be strapped to chairs with hoods over their heads.

Three department employees with rifles, all loaded with live ammunition, would then stand behind a wall with an opening, through which they would fire bullets at the person’s heart.

Eduardo Medina contributed reporting.