A South Carolina court has blocked the execution of two electric chairs in the new Courts

Prisoners must choose death by execution, according to court rules, as U.S. states seek alternatives to lethal injection in drug shortages.

The U.S. High Court in South Carolina has been blocked two executions With the electric chair set up for the month under the recently revised state criminal death law, U.S. states are finding alternatives to deadly injections amid drug shortages.

South Carolina Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of two murders in 2002, was sentenced to life in prison with an electric chair on Friday, the first use of criminal capital in the state in a decade. The execution of Freddie Owen’s electric chair for the murder of an armed robbery was set for June 25.

But on Wednesday the state Supreme Court ruled that men cannot be killed until they are shot to death, according to the new state law, which obliges convicts to choose between electrocution or executions if they are drugs with lethal injection. are not available.

The statute aims to restart executions after the state imposed an inability to obtain drugs after a 10-year involuntary suspension.

Spokesman for the South Carolina Department of Corrections tell The local outlet The Greenville News reports that “the department is moving forward in creating policies and procedures for a shooting. We are looking for other states through this process.”

“When will we inform the judge a shooting it becomes an opportunity for executions “.

Lawyers for the two men argued that electrocution-induced death is cruel and unusual. They also said that men have the right to die by lethal injection and that the state has not exhausted all methods of obtaining drugs with lethal injection.

Richard Moore, another convicted inmate, was due to die in December 2020, but the South Carolina Supreme Court previously postponed the execution because there were no lethal injection drugs.

Moore has asked the state high court to drop his the death penalty and is awaiting a response. The last person to run in an electric chair was murdered in 2002 in Alabama by killer Lynda Lyon Block.

Gas chambers

Along with the electric chair and executions, some states plan to use gas chambers for criminal sanctions.

Arizona began renovating its gas chamber, which was last used 22 years ago, to execute prisoners at the end of last year. The state also bought hydrogen cyanide gas, killing 865,000 Jews in the Auschwitz concentration camp alone.

Alabama, too, could be expected to begin executions through the gas chamber, but with nitrogen hypoxia.

Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reported The Alabama Department of Justice is “in the process of completing the initial physical construction of the nitrogen hypoxia system and its safety measures,” citing court records.

“Once construction is complete … a security expert will conduct a visit to assess the system and look for points of concern to be addressed.”

The documents submitted did not explicitly state whether the state planned to use the gas chamber for a specific execution.

It’s hard to know what the concerns are, DPIC executive director Robert Dunham told Newsweek that the execution by nitrogen hypoxia “has never been done and no one has any idea whether it will work its way. Defenders say it will.”

“And there’s no way to test it, because it’s completely unethical to kill someone experimentally against their will,” he said.