Lawyers Raise Concern as Autopsy Finds South Carolina’s Second Firing Squad Execution May Have Been Botched

Without sounding too flippant it does raise questions on the future efficacy of Trump’s dictaorship if they can’t even shoot people properly especially in the country more obsessed by firearms than any other on the planet.

Death Penalty Information Centre

On May 8, 2025, Mikal Deen Mahdi’s lawyers sub­mit­ted to the South Carolina Supreme Court the state pathol­o­gy report in his case which sug­gests that Mr. Mahdi’s exe­cu­tion last month by fir­ing squad did not go as planned. Pathologists report­ed that not only did Mr. Mahdi have two wounds as opposed to the antic­i­pat­ed three wounds from three South Carolina Corrections Department (SCDC) shoot­ers, but also that they missed the intend­ed tar­get over his heart, pro­long­ing his death.

Mr. Mahdi was the sec­ond indi­vid­ual to be exe­cut­ed via fir­ing squad in South Carolina since it was intro­duced as an alter­na­tive method to elec­tro­cu­tion and lethal injec­tion in 2021. On March 7, 2025, Brad Keith Sigmon was the first indi­vid­ual to be exe­cut­ed by fir­ing squad in South Carolina fol­low­ing lit­i­ga­tion in which his attor­neys argued that he faced an impos­si­ble choice between exe­cu­tion meth­ods. South Carolina law requires that con­demned indi­vid­u­als choose which method of exe­cu­tion the state uses: elec­tro­cu­tion, fir­ing squad, and lethal injec­tion. Citing recent­ly botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions, Mr. Sigmon’s team request­ed that the South Carolina Supreme Court order SCDC to pro­vide more infor­ma­tion about the lethal injec­tion drugs and pro­to­cols. His request was denied.

Even though the state uti­lized the same com­pa­ny to per­form Mr. Sigmon and Mr. Mahdi’s autop­sies, the lev­el of doc­u­men­ta­tion and evi­dence var­ied wide­ly between the two cas­es. NPR report­ed they were able to review over 20 pho­tos in rela­tion to Mr. Sigmon’s autop­sy, rang­ing from X?rays to inter­nal and exter­nal imagery, which clear­ly indi­cat­ed three bul­let wounds. However, with Mr. Mahdi’s autop­sy, his lawyers only received one pho­to of his tor­so show­ing two bul­let wounds, and no X?ray or addi­tion­al imagery includ­ing a cloth­ing analy­sis, which was pre­vi­ous­ly pro­vid­ed with Mr. Sigmon’s autopsy.

As for the dis­crep­an­cy of wounds, the state’s pathol­o­gy report denotes that ?“it is believed that” two bul­lets entered through one wound, but a sep­a­rate pathol­o­gist com­mis­sioned by Mr. Mahdi’s team, who observed the equiv­a­lent siz­ing of the two wounds, stat­ed, ?“the odds of that are pret­ty minus­cule.” In a com­ment to NPR, Mr. Mahdi’s attor­ney David Weiss com­ment­ed, “[i]t’s not ful­ly clear what hap­pened. Did one of the gun­men not fire? Did their gun get jammed? Did they miss? We just have no idea at this point.”

Although the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of uti­liz­ing the fir­ing squad was heav­i­ly lit­i­gat­ed, the state supreme court found that it was not cru­el or unusu­al if there was any pain, as it would last only 10 to 15 sec­onds ?“unless there is a mas­sive botch of the exe­cu­tion in which each mem­ber of the fir­ing squad sim­ply miss­es the inmate’s heart.” Reports indi­cat­ed that the autop­sy indi­cat­ed that none of the bul­lets direct­ly hit Mr. Mahdi’s heart, instead pierc­ing his liv­er and caus­ing dam­age to his liv­er and oth­er inter­nal organs and allow­ing his heart to keep beat­ing. Lawyers for Mr. Mahdi com­mis­sioned a sec­ond pathol­o­gist, Dr. Jonathan Arden, to exam­ine the state’s autop­sy report. According to Dr. Arden, ?“Mr. Mahdi did expe­ri­ence excru­ci­at­ing con­scious pain and suf­fer­ing for about 30 to 60 sec­onds after he was shot[.]”

Because of a?“shield law” passed in 2023, the state refus­es to pro­vide spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion regard­ing the indi­vid­u­als involved in car­ry­ing out the exe­cu­tion. However, accord­ing to a SCDC press release regard­ing the fir­ing squad pro­to­col, ?“three fir­ing squad mem­bers will be behind the wall … A small aim point will be placed over his heart… [and] after the war­den reads the exe­cu­tion order, the team will fire.”