South Carolina high court blocks two electric chair executions | Al Jazeera

The top court in the US state of South Carolina has blocked two executions by electric chair set for this month under the state’s recently revised capital punishment law, as US states scramble to find alternatives to lethal injections amid a drug shortage.

South Carolina had planned to execute Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of two murders in 2002, with the electric chair on Friday, the first use of capital punishment in the state in a decade. Freddie Owen’s electric chair execution, for murder during an armed robbery, was set for June 25.

But the state’s supreme court on Wednesday ruled the men cannot be put to death until they have the choice of death by firing squad, as set out in the state’s revised law, which compels the condemned to choose between electrocution or firing squad if lethal injection drugs are not available.

The statute is aimed at restarting executions after an involuntary 10-year pause that the state attributed to an inability to procure the drugs.