South Carolina inmate picks firing squad over electric chair

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina prisoner scheduled for execution later this month has chosen to die by firing squad rather than in the electric chair.

Court documents filed Friday listed Richard Moore’s decision. Moore’s April 29 execution would make him the first person executed in the state since 2011.

His attorneys have asked the state Supreme Court to halt the execution while another court considers whether the state’s capital punishment methods are constitutional.

A state law that went into effect last year set electrocution as the default method and added a firing squad option.

Correction officials have maintained they are unable to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection, the state’s third method.

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