lethal injection

Some U.S. lawmakers have advocated reviving the firing squad as an execution method, arguing it can be quicker and more humane than lethal injection, particularly after several botched lethal-injection executions.

Some U.S. states have struggled to maintain adequate supplies of lethal-injection drugs, which has contributed to consideration of alternative execution methods.

As of 2025, Tennessee law permits inmates who were convicted of crimes before January 1999 to choose electrocution (the electric chair) instead of the state's preferred method of execution, lethal injection.

Some U.S. jurisdictions have authorized or introduced the firing squad as an execution method when shortages or difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injection made lethal injection impracticable.

South Carolina experienced an unintended 13-year pause in executions caused by difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injection, which led state lawmakers to authorize alternative execution methods.

Lethal injection is a method of capital punishment in which pharmaceutical agents are administered to cause death.

South Carolina permits condemned inmates to choose their method of execution from among lethal injection, firing squad, or the electric chair.

South Carolina's lethal injection protocols have included the sedative pentobarbital administered in two doses in recent executions.