South Carolina

In 2025, 44 people died by court-ordered execution in the United States, and Florida executed more people than any other state that year while Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas each carried out five executions.

As of 2025-11-20, Florida had carried out 17 executions in 2025, the most executions of any U.S. state in 2025; Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas had carried out five executions each in 2025.

As of November 20, 2025, Florida had executed more people in 2025 than any other U.S. state; Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas had each carried out five executions in 2025.

South Carolina provides execution methods that include lethal injection, electrocution (electric chair), and execution by firing squad.

South Carolina experienced a 13-year pause in executions because the state was unable to obtain lethal injection drugs, after which executions resumed.

As of November 13, 2025, firing-squad execution is legally available in Utah, Idaho, and South Carolina and is authorized as a backup execution method if other methods are unavailable in Oklahoma and Mississippi; the electric chair also remains a legal execution option in several U.S. states including South Carolina.

No South Carolina governor has granted clemency to a death-sentenced prisoner in the modern era of the state's death penalty.

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.

Sheriffs serve as the law enforcement leaders responsible for running county-level law enforcement organizations in South Carolina's 46 counties.

South Carolina sheriffs are elected by county voters to four-year terms and face limited formal oversight beyond those elections.

South Carolina state law grants elected sheriffs broad discretion over how their agency's funds are spent, which crimes the agency prioritizes, and who the agency hires and fires.

Between 2010 and 2025, at least 12 elected sheriffs in South Carolina were convicted of or pleaded guilty to on-duty crimes.

South Carolina law permits condemned inmates to choose among lethal injection, the firing squad, and the electric chair as methods of execution.

South Carolina experienced an approximately 13-year pause in carrying out executions before resuming executions after obtaining drugs for lethal injection.

South Carolina law allows people sentenced to death to choose among lethal injection, firing squad, or the electric chair as their method of execution.

The 2025 report by Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action estimated that Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas could end up with fewer Democratic U.S. House representatives if Section 2 protections were eliminated.

Publix operates supermarket stores in eight U.S. states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, with more than 1,421 total supermarket locations and over 900 locations in Florida.

As of 2025, South Carolina's authorized execution methods include the firing squad, lethal injection, and an electric chair.

South Carolina adopted the firing squad as an alternative method of execution after struggling to find or obtain lethal injection drugs.

South Carolina added the firing squad as an authorized execution method during a 13-year pause in executions, citing an inability to obtain the drugs used for lethal injection.

In South Carolina, difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs led to an approximately 13-year pause in executions and prompted state lawmakers to authorize the firing squad as an alternative execution method.

South Carolina resumed executions in September 2024 after a 13-year pause, citing difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs and concerns about botched lethal-injection executions.

In South Carolina, a death sentence can be carried out by a firing squad composed of three volunteer shooters positioned approximately 15 feet from the condemned.

South Carolina experienced a multi-year pause in carrying out executions because of difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs, and executions resumed in 2024 after a 13-year pause.

A 2021 South Carolina state law specifies that electrocution is the default method of execution if lethal injection drugs are not available.

By the early 2010s, South Carolina had run out of lethal injection drugs and drug manufacturers were unwilling to sell additional execution drugs without anonymity, a condition South Carolina law did not permit.

South Carolina reinstated the death penalty in 1985.

South Carolina restarted its death penalty in 1985.

Since 1977, only three U.S. prisoners outside South Carolina have been executed by firing squad; all of those executions were in Utah, most recently Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.

No South Carolina governor has granted clemency for a death sentence since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

SLED is the acronym for South Carolina's State Law Enforcement Division.

South Carolina experienced a 13-year pause in carrying out executions due to difficulties obtaining lethal injection drugs, after which the state resumed executions.

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.

Maxton, North Carolina is approximately 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh and is located near the South Carolina border.

Struggles to obtain lethal-injection drugs led to a 13-year pause in executions in South Carolina and prompted South Carolina lawmakers to authorize the firing squad as an execution method.

No South Carolina governor has granted clemency in South Carolina's modern era of the death penalty.

The electric chair is a legally authorized method of execution in South Carolina.