For 13 years — from 2011 through 2023 — South Carolina was effectively unable to carry out executions, despite having one of the larger death rows in the Southeast. The same pharmaceutical supplier problem that stalled executions in Ohio, Oklahoma, and other states left South Carolina without legal access to the drugs required for its lethal injection protocol. In 2021, the South Carolina General Assembly resolved that impasse through a different approach: it passed legislation adding the electric chair and firing squad as alternative execution methods, and made lethal injection the default only if drugs were available — with the electric chair as the alternative, and the firing squad as a second alternative.
The 2021 Law: Why South Carolina Took the Firing Squad Step
South Carolina's decision to authorize the firing squad was the first such law in the United States to explicitly offer it as an inmate choice, and it made South Carolina the state that would eventually carry the first firing squad execution in the US in over a decade. The legislative logic was straightforward: if pharmaceutical companies would not supply lethal injection drugs, the state would use methods that did not require them. Critics, including Amnesty International and the ACLU of South Carolina, argued that the law was an end-run around pharmaceutical companies' moral objections and that the alternatives — electrocution and firing squad — constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
Three Executions in 2024-2025
South Carolina carried out three executions in rapid succession after years of inactivity:
- Freddie Owens — executed September 20, 2024, by lethal injection. Owens had been on death row since 1998 for the murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery in Greenville. His execution was the first in South Carolina in 13 years.
- Marion Bowman Jr. — executed January 31, 2025, by lethal injection. Bowman had been convicted of the murder of a woman in Berkeley County.
- Brad Sigmon — executed March 7, 2025, by firing squad — his own choice. Sigmon, convicted of beating his former girlfriend's parents to death with a baseball bat in 2001, chose the firing squad over lethal injection and the electric chair, stating that he believed it was a more humane death. His execution was the first firing squad execution in the United States since 2010.
Death Row at SCDC: Broad River Correctional Institution
South Carolina's death row is housed at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia. Death row inmates at SCDC are held in single cells with severe limitations on movement and programming compared to the general population. Visits are non-contact. People on death row typically spend many years or decades there while direct appeals, state post-conviction proceedings, and federal habeas corpus litigation proceed through the courts.
What Families of Death Row Inmates Need
If your loved one is on South Carolina's death row:
- Capital defense attorneys are the most critical resource — post-conviction capital litigation requires specialists with specific expertise in both the technical procedural requirements and the investigative resources to develop mitigation
- The South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense oversees capital representation for those who cannot afford counsel
- The Death Penalty Resource and Defense Center (dprc.org) provides resources and coordinates capital defense in South Carolina
- Visits to death row at Broad River: contact SCDC at (803) 896-8555 for current visiting protocols, which are more restrictive than general population
SCDC headquarters: 4444 Broad River Road, Columbia, SC 29210. Phone: (803) 896-8555. Website: doc.sc.gov. Death Penalty Resource Center: dprc.org.