COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – South Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would make the electric chair the standard method of execution for inmates in the state.
A House subcommittee advanced legislation on Thursday that requires prisoners on death row to be electrocuted if the lethal injection is not available as an option.
Currently, death row prisoners who exhaust their judicial remedies can choose to die by lethal injection or electrocution. The method standardizes for lethal injection if a prisoner does not make a choice.
But South Carolina ran out of the necessary drugs for lethal injection in 2013 and has been unable to buy more since.
Two executions have been suspended in the past three months because of a lack of drugs. The state Supreme Court last year delayed the execution in December of Richard Bernard Moore, who was convicted of the 1999 murder of a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg County.
Earlier this month, the high court also suspended the execution of Brad Sigmon, who was sentenced to death for a double murder in 2001 in Greenville.