Lawmakers seek investigation into South Carolina’s firing squad execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Two South Carolina legislators have requested an investigation into the state’s firing squad execution last month after lawyers for the inmate said his autopsy showed the shots nearly missed his heart and left him in extreme pain for up to a minute.

The Democratic and Republican representatives asked the governor, the prison system and leaders in the state House and Senate for an independent and comprehensive review of the April 11 execution of Mikal Mahdi.

They also want the firing squad removed from the methods of execution that an inmate can choose until an investigation is complete. Condemned prisoners in South Carolina can also choose lethal injection or the electric chair.

Reps. Justin Bamberg and Neal Collins wrote in their letter that the request doesn’t diminish the crimes Mahdi was convicted of, nor was it rooted in sympathy for the 42-year-old inmate. Mahdi was put to death for the 2004 shooting of an off-duty police officer during a robbery.

“This independent investigation is to preserve the integrity of South Carolina’s justice system and public confidence in our state’s administration of executions under the rule of law,” they wrote.

Bamberg, a Democrat, and Coillins, a Republican, are deskmates in the South Carolina House.

Prison officials say the execution was conducted properly

Prison officials said they thought the execution was properly conducted. House and Senate leaders did not respond. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said he sees no need to investigate.

“The governor has high confidence in the leadership of the Department of Corrections. He believes the sentence of death for Mr. Mahdi was properly and lawfully carried out,” wrote spokesman Brandon Charochak in an email.

Even without an investigation, what happened at Mahdi’s execution may get hashed out in court soon. A possible execution date for Stephen Stanko, who has two death sentences for murders in Horry County and Georgetown County, could be set as soon as Friday. He would have to decide two weeks later how he wants to die.

Mahdi had admitted he killed Orangeburg Public Safety officer James Myers in 2004, shooting him at least eight times before burning his body. Myers’ wife found him in the couple’s Calhoun County shed, which had been the backdrop to their wedding 15 months earlier.

Just one autopsy photo

The autopsy conducted after Mahdi’s execution raised several questions that the lawmakers repeated in their letter.

The only photo of Mahdi’s body taken at his autopsy showed just two distinct wounds in his torso. A pathologist who reviewed the results for Mahdi’s lawyers said that showed one of the three shots from the three prison employee volunteers on the firing squad missed.

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy concluded that two bullets entered the body in the same place after consulting with an unnamed prison official who said that had happened before in training. Prison officials said all three guns fired and no bullets or fragments were found in the death chamber.

“Both bullets traveling on the exact same trajectory both before and after hitting a target through the same exact entrance point is contrary to the law of physics,” Bamberg and Collins wrote.

Shots appeared to have hit low

In the state’s first firing squad execution of Brad Sigmon on March 7, three distinct wounds were found on his chest and his heart was heavily damaged, according to his autopsy report.

The shots barely hit one of the four chambers of Mahdi’s heart and extensively damaged his liver and lungs. Where it likely takes someone 15 seconds to lose consciousness when the heart is directly hit, Mahdi likely was aware and in extreme pain for 30 seconds to a minute, said Dr. Jonathan Arden, the pathologist who reviewed the autopsy for the inmate’s lawyers.

Witnesses said Mahdi cried out as the shots were fired at his execution, groaned again some 45 seconds later and let out one last low moan just before he appeared to draw his final breath at 75 seconds.

Little documentation at the autopsy

Bamberg and Collins said Mahdi’s autopsy itself was problematic.

The official autopsy did not include X-rays to allow the results to be independently verified; only one photo was taken of Mahdi’s body, and no close-ups of the wounds; and his clothing was not examined to determine where the target was placed and how it aligned with the damage the bullets caused to his shirt and his body.

“I think it is really stretching the truth to say that Mikal Mahdi had an autopsy. I think most pathologists would say that he had ‘an external examination of the body,’” said Jonathan Groner, an expert in lethal injection and other capital punishments and a surgeon who teaches at Ohio State University.

Sigmon’s autopsy included X-rays, several photos and a cursory examination of his clothes

Prison officials have used the same company, Professional Pathology Services, for all its execution autopsies, Corrections Department spokeswoman Chrysti Shain said.

They provide no instructions or restrictions to the firm for any autopsy, she said.

The pathologist who conducted the autopsy refused to answer questions from The Associated Press.

Bamberg and Collins also want the state to allow at least one legislator to attend executions as witnesses.

State law is specific about who can be in the small witness room: prison staff, two representatives for the inmate, three relatives of the victim, a law enforcement officer, the prosecutor where the crime took place, and three members of the media.