Stephen Stanko, scheduled to be killed by the State of South Carolina later this month, is opting for lethal injection over the firing squad because he is “troubled by what appeared to be a lingering death of the last person in the state who was killed by firing squad,” his lawyers said in court filings, the Washington Post reported.
Stanko is set to be killed on June 13 and was forced to choose whether the state should kill him by firing squad, lethal injection, or electrocution. According to the Post, Stanko’s lawyers stated that he had been leaning toward firing squad until he heard reports that Mikel Mahdi, who was killed by the state by firing squad in April, suffered an agonizing death for 45 seconds because the shooters almost missed his heart, decided on lethal injection.
South Carolina resumed executions last year after a 12-year hiatus necessitated by its inability to obtain lethal injection drugs. After the legislature passed a secrecy law protecting the identity of the drug’s suppliers, it resumed executions in 2024, killing two people. So far this year, the state has killed three.
The 57-year-old Stanko was sentenced to death for the 2005 murders of his girlfriend, 43-year-old Laura Elizabeth Ling, and his friend, 67-year-old Henry Turner.