Columbia, SC – Two legislators of South Carolina have requested an investigation into the execution of the state execution team last month after the lawyers for the inmate said that their autopsy showed that the shots almost lost their hearts and left it with an extreme pain for up to a minute.
The Democratic and Republican representatives asked the governor, the prison system and the leaders in the House of Representatives and the State Senate for an independent and integral review of the execution of April 11 of Mikal Mahdi.
They also want the shooting squad to be eliminated from the execution methods that an inmate can choose until an investigation is completed. Prisoners convicted in South Carolina can also choose lethal injection or the electric chair.
The representatives. Justin Bamberg and Neal Collins wrote in their letter that the application does not decrease the crimes that Mahdi was convicted, nor was it based on the sympathy for the 42 -year -old inmate. Mahdi was executed by the shooting in 2004 of a police officer out of service during a robbery.
“This independent investigation is to preserve the integrity of the South Carolina Justice System and public confidence in the administration of executions of our State under the rule of law,” they wrote.
Bamberg, a Democrat, and Collins, a Republican, are desktop companions in the South Carolina Chamber.
Prison officials say the execution was carried out correctly
Prison officials said they thought the execution was carried out correctly. Chamber leaders and the Senate did not respond. Republican governor Henry McMaster said he does not need to investigate.
“The governor has great confidence in the leadership of the Department of Corrections. He believes that the death sentence by Mr. Mahdi was carried out properly and legally,” wrote spokesman Brandon Charochak in an email.
Even without an investigation, what happened in the execution of MAHDI can be taken in the court soon. A possible execution date for Stephen Stanko, who has two death sentences for murders in Horry County and Georgetown County could be established as soon as Friday. I would have to decide two weeks later how you want to die.
Mahdi had admitted that he killed the Public Security officer of Orangeburg, James Myers, in 2004, shooting at least eight times before burn his body. Myers’s wife found him in the couple’s Callon County, which had been the wedding backdrop 15 months before.
Just a autopsy photo
The autopsy performed after Mahdi’s execution raised several questions that legislators repeated in their letter.
The only photo of Mahdi’s body taken in his autopsy showed only two different wounds in his torso. A pathologist who reviewed the results for Mahdi’s lawyers said he showed one of the three shots of the three volunteers of prison employees in the shooting equipment.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy concluded that two bullets entered the body in the same place after consulting with an unidentified prison official who said he had happened before in the training. Prison officials said the three weapons fired and that no bullets or fragments were found in the death chamber.
“Both bullets that travel on the same trajectory before and after reaching an objective through the same exact entrance point are contrary to the Law of Physics,” wrote Bamberg and Collins.
The shots seemed to have hit low
In the first execution of the Brad Sigmon state’s shooting squad on March 7, three different wounds were found in their chest, and their heart was very damaged, according to its autopsy report.
The shots barely hit one of the four cameras of the heart of Mahdi and greatly damaged their liver and lungs. Where someone is likely to take consciousness for 15 seconds when the heart is hit directly, Mahdi was probably aware and with extreme pain for 30 seconds to a minute, said Dr. Jonathan Arden, the pathologist who reviewed the autopsy of the prison lawyers.
The witnesses said that Mahdi cried when the shots were fired in their execution, they groaned about 45 seconds later and released a last groan just before it seems to breathe 75 seconds.
Little documentation in autopsy
Bamberg and Collins said Mahdi’s autopsy was problematic.
The official autopsy did not include radiographs to allow the results to be verified independently; Only a photo of Mahdi’s body was taken, and there are no first planes of the wounds; And her clothes was not examined to determine where the target was placed and how she aligned with the damage that the bullets caused to her shirt and body.
“I think he is really stretching the truth that Mikal Mahdi had an autopsy. I think that most pathologists would say” an external examination of the body, “said Jonathan Groner, an expert in lethal injection and other capital punishments and a surgeon who teaches at Ohio State University.
Sigmon’s autopsy included radiographs, several photos and a superficial examination of his clothes
Prison officials have used the same company, professional pathology services, for all their execution autopsies, said spokeswoman for the corrections department, Chrysti Shain.
They do not provide instructions or restrictions to the company for any autopsy, he said.
The pathologist who performed the autopsy refused to answer questions from Associated Press.
Bamberg and Collins also want the State to allow at least one legislator to attend executions as witnesses.
The state law is specific to who can be in the small witness room: prison personnel, two representatives of the inmate, three relatives of the victim, an agent of the law, the prosecutor where the crime took place and three members of the media.
