On November 14, 2025, the state of South Carolina carried out the execution of Stephen Bryant, a death-row inmate convicted for a triple murder in 2004. Bryant’s decision to opt for the firing squad—a method authorized in only five U.S. states—has reignited fierce debate over the morality, history, and future of capital punishment in America. According to Justia’s Verdict, Bryant’s execution marks a rare occurrence in modern American justice: only six such executions have taken place nationwide in the last fifty years.
South Carolina, alongside Utah, Mississippi, Idaho, and Oklahoma, remains among the few states that still authorize the firing squad as a method of execution. Despite its legal standing, the firing squad has become an anomaly in the United States, a relic of a more violent era. The Verdict notes that Bryant’s execution was not an isolated event in South Carolina this year. Earlier in 2025, Brad Sigmon met a similar fate, and just a month after Sigmon, Mikal Mahdi was executed by a three-person firing squad. According to reporting from NPR, Mahdi’s autopsy revealed only two bullet wounds—neither of which struck his heart directly. Instead, the bullets damaged his liver and other internal organs, leaving his heart beating for several minutes after the shots were fired.
The details of Bryant’s final moments are as stark as they are unsettling. The Verdict describes how he was strapped to a chair, made no final statement, and was shot at close range. The force of the bullets sent the target placed over his heart flying several feet, blood spreading across his chest, and he was pronounced dead minutes later. The scene, as described by attorneys and witnesses, was one of extreme violence and trauma. One attorney who witnessed a firing squad execution in South Carolina called it a “horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society.”
Historically, the firing squad is one of America’s oldest execution methods, tracing its use back to colonial times. Professor Deborah Denno, cited by the Verdict, explains that “prior to 1789, there were thirty firing squad executions recorded, most in Louisiana and California… Early accounts of firing squad executions noted that the squad was composed of five volunteer marksmen, yet only four would receive rifles with live rounds. A fifth rifle would contain a blank so that no single member of the squad would experience personal guilt for the killing.” This ritual, designed to blur the lines of responsibility, speaks volumes about society’s discomfort with the act of execution.
Historian Mark Smith, also quoted by the Verdict, adds that such executions “were often done at a crossroads, some kind of field, some kind of public, open space—and that was the intention because they were largely directed against deserters.” He continues, “They were typically shot simultaneously by three or more fellow soldiers—one of whom might have been issued blanks, rather than live rounds—to blur the lines of responsibility for the death.” Smith recounts a particularly grisly Civil War case where a soldier survived the initial volley and had to be shot again at close range, underlining the method’s inconsistency and, at times, inefficacy.
The spectacle of the firing squad has always been difficult for witnesses to bear. Sometimes, Smith notes, soldiers deliberately missed their targets, unable to shoulder the psychological burden of killing in this manner. The method’s brutality is not just a matter of physical violence—it’s also a psychic wound for all involved.
The firing squad’s legacy is deeply entwined with America’s history of violence and repression. According to the Verdict, prominent scholar Angela Davis has argued that the firing squad has historically played a role in maintaining racialized violence, describing it as “violence that kept white supremacy in place.” Each time the method is revived, these troubling associations resurface, raising uncomfortable questions about the values underpinning American justice.
Yet, as the Verdict points out, the renewed use of firing squads does not necessarily reflect a resurgence of support for the death penalty. Instead, it exposes the impossibility of finding a truly humane execution method. Professor Corrina Lain summarized the broader moral dilemma: “The firing squad shows what the death penalty is, which is the state shedding blood in your name.” The execution of Stephen Bryant, in particular, highlights a disturbing symmetry: “One we call murder, the other justice,” the Verdict observes, capturing the moral tension at the heart of the debate.
Meanwhile, the national landscape surrounding the death penalty is shifting. On December 5, 2025, Alabama Representative Chris England introduced a bill proposing a constitutional amendment to abolish the death penalty in Alabama. If passed, the measure would place the question directly before voters on the 2028 primary ballot. England’s proposal comes at a time when Alabama has drawn international scrutiny for its execution practices. In 2025 alone, the state executed five inmates, following six executions in 2024. Notably, Alabama became the first state to execute a prisoner via nitrogen hypoxia—a controversial new method that has drawn both condemnation and curiosity from legal scholars and human rights advocates.
Alabama’s death row currently holds 155 people, including 150 men and five women, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. The state’s history with capital punishment is a long one; after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision briefly halted executions nationwide, Alabama reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Since 1983, the state has executed 83 inmates, a statistic that underscores both the persistence and controversy of the practice.
The debate over capital punishment is hardly new, but the recent developments in South Carolina and Alabama have brought it back into sharp focus. The use of the firing squad in South Carolina, with its echoes of America’s violent past, and Alabama’s willingness to experiment with new execution methods, have prompted renewed calls for a fundamental reexamination of the death penalty. Critics argue that no matter the method, state-sanctioned executions inevitably carry the taint of brutality and moral ambiguity.
Supporters of the death penalty, on the other hand, maintain that it serves as a necessary deterrent and a form of justice for the most heinous crimes. Yet even among its proponents, there is growing discomfort with the mechanics of execution—whether by firing squad, electric chair, lethal injection, or nitrogen hypoxia. The procedural failures and physical suffering reported in recent executions, such as the botched shots in Mahdi’s case, only add fuel to the fire.
As Alabama prepares to let its citizens decide the fate of capital punishment in the state, and as South Carolina faces renewed scrutiny over its methods, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. The question remains: can any method of execution ever be considered humane, or does the act itself inevitably drag society into the shadows of its own history?
The recent executions and legislative proposals serve as stark reminders that the debate over the death penalty is far from settled. Each new case, each new method, forces Americans to confront not only the mechanics of death but the values that define justice itself.
