In the two weeks since I knew how [Brad] Sigmon was going to die, I read up on firing squads and the damage that can be done by the bullets. I looked at the autopsy photos of the last man shot to death by the state, in Utah in 2010.
I also pored over the transcript of his trial, including how prosecutors said it took less than two minutes for Sigmon to strike his ex-girlfriend’s parents nine times each in the head with a baseball bat, going back and forth between them in different rooms of their Greenville County home in 2001 until they were dead.
But you don’t know everything when some of execution protocols are kept secret, and it’s impossible to know what to expect when you’ve never seen someone shot at close range right in front of you.
The firing squad is certainly faster — and more violent — than lethal injection. It’s a lot more tense, too. My heart started pounding a little after Sigmon’s lawyer read his final statement. The hood was put over Sigmon’s head, and an employee opened the black pull shade that shielded where the three prison system volunteer shooters were.
About two minutes later, they fired. There was no warning or countdown. The abrupt crack of the rifles startled me. And the white target with the red bullseye that had been on his chest, standing out against his black prison jumpsuit, disappeared instantly as Sigmon’s whole body flinched.
It reminded me of what happened to the prisoner 21 years ago when electricity jolted his body.
I tried to keep track, all at once, of the digital clock on the wall to my right, Sigmon to my left, the small, rectangular window with the shooters and the witnesses in front of me.
A jagged red spot about the size of a small fist appeared where Sigmon was shot. His chest moved two or three times. Outside of the rifle crack, there was no sound.
A doctor came out in less than a minute, and his examination took about a minute more. Sigmon was declared dead at 6:08 p.m.
— Jeffrey Collins in Violent and sudden. What a firing squad execution looked like through my eyes
For the morbidly curious: the round the state uses is .308 frangible. Hornady 110gr TAP Urban specifically. https://t.co/Ih53NFspdJ
— Open Source Defense (@opensrcdefense) March 7, 2025
The death penalty, when used properly and efficiently is a just punishment and is needed. The mode in which the convict dies is to placate the weak of heart. It doesn’t matter if it is gas, electricity, hanging, lethal injection or firing squad, the left will always say that it is too violent or cruel. I say too bad, you kill 2 people you forfeit your life. They way you die does not matter.
It certainly can be a just punishment. It just isn’t a deterrent.
It certainly deters the criminal being executed from ever harming another innocent victim while incarcerated which occurs on a daily basis in our country. The only real problem with executions in the United States is the fact that it takes on average 18.9 years to be performed.
I believe you are correct, those that do heinous crimes are psycho/sociopathts and cannot be rehabilitated.
Sigmon won’t be a repeat offender. Moreover, you can’t ever know how many people were deterred, can you?
very nearly a perfect set of statements.
It does eliminate recidivism. And even if it’s not a deterrent (crazy people are rarely deterred by potential consequences), it sends the message that society values innocent life over guilty life and that’s an important message.
Keeps me from killing people.
Honestly this is one of the main points of the death penalty. Diffuse and deter blood fueds. Which of course tend to come up more where justice is lacking.
It deters the executed individual.
Interred is detered.
@Mark and @Liston That can be true. However capital punishment is often sold as a deterrence against the initial crime. We need to be honest about what it is. It’s about justice.
“The death penalty, when used properly and efficiently”
The requires those gaming the justice system to secure a false or legally unsafe conviction be themselves tried for either attempted or first degree murder, without any immunity.
To give the State power to execute, that power must be controlled and be completely transparent.
There are cases where people were executed and later found innocent. The evidence must be infallible. The prosecutors and defense attorneys must be fully transparent and not hiding evidence or making up evidence. Death penalty cases need an additional layer of scrutiny because once dead there is no recourse.
Once there is no doubt, it shouldn’t take more than 24 hours to prepare the proper tools for execution.
You’re not going to find any country that carries out its death sentences that quickly. Even China’s legal system takes on average 1-2 years to execute death row convicts after final sentencing. Lightyears better than the garbage we have here in the U.S., but that’s still a long time.
thank goodness! gives some time to see if the police and prosecutor screwed up or lied, which they tend to do. innocent people have been executed by the government. that’s enough for me to question the wisdom of granting the government power to kill its citizens. it’s not a liberal or conservative thing. it’s about how much you trust the competence of the government. i personally do not and many other conservatives do not either.
Don’t trust them but not enough so to do away with the death penalty. Some people just need killing.
Agree. The innocent people who have been executed lives are worth more than the vengeance we get from killing the definitely guilty.
Vengeance? Lol no we stopped having relevant blood fueds a long time ago.
One day while I was in law school (1969) I ran across the statement “Better that a hundred guilty go free than one innocent be convicted.” I wondered what societal balance beam was being used to make the judgment. Is that really true? Or is the one wrongful conviction the price you must pay in order to protect society from the hundred? Knowing that nothing is perfect, particularly if humans are involved, agood question. Still a tossup in my mind after 65 years.
Always saw it as an ideal to aspire and work towards. And with modern evidence methods and requirements I would say for the last 30 odd years we far exceed that ratio anyway. At this point denial of appropriate justice is a grave disservice to the victims. Especially with commies pardoning murderers lately.
These do not occur frequently enough…nor public enough.
“… how prosecutors said it took less than two minutes for Sigmon to strike his ex-girlfriend’s parents nine times each in the head with a baseball bat, going back and forth between them in different rooms of their Greenville County home in 2001 until they were dead. … A doctor came out in less than a minute, and his examination took about a minute more. Sigmon was declared dead at 6:08 p.m.”
It would have been comparable ironic poetic justice if they beat Sigmon to death with a baseball bat, instead of shooting him. The death by firing squad was much more humane than he deserved.
Any capital punishment sentence should carry with it a few statutory and specific caveats regarding appeals. I’m not married to this example, but I think it could stand as a representative scenario.
The punishment shall be death, sentence to be carried out exactly 30 days after the first of the following to occur:
a. Four years passage from date of sentencing, or
b. The rejection by the highest appropriate appellate court of 4 appeals for any reason.
In common English, a prisoner gets 4 years in which to file four appeals. If all appeals fail in less than four years, he gets 30 days. If four years expire before the appeals are through the system, he gets 30 days. If any appeal is successful in 4 years or less, good luck with a new trial and a reset on the clock.
Do you want to eliminate the drama?
A small room with one door, no windows, and heating ducts taped over.
A wooden chair with arms and some leather straps to tie the inmate to it.
A Fitbit or Apple watch to monitor heartrate over Bluetooth.
Strap him on the chair, bring in a tank of nitrogen, open it, walk out and close the door. Over a period of minutes, determined by the size (cu ft) of the room, the oxygen in the room will be displaced by nitogen.
When the percentage of O2 is reduced from 21%to around 8.5%, he will lose consciousness. The only stress is psychological, since the CO2 level is being maintained by simply breathing – air is normally 80% nitrogen- there is no sensation of suffocation. When the percentage of O2 falls under 7.5% his heart and/or breathing will cease. When the watch says no heartbeat, give it 15 minutes, open the door send in guys in fire-fighter breathers to remove the body. Turn off the nitrogen and ventilate the room.
About as humane as you can get – a lot more than most of them deserve. Cheap- capital expenses: chair, straps plastic and tape for vents, nitrogen tank and fitbit watch, all reusable. Operating expense- refill tank. Less than 600 bucks initially and about $35 per use.
Why the hell has no state done this?
“Let’s do it.” ~ Gary Gilmore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tb_j7dgUPg