Supreme Court Clears Way for Rare Execution by Firing Squad

The US Supreme Court cleared the way for South Carolina to carry out its first execution by firing squad in decades.

In a unanimous order Friday, the justices declined to halt Brad Keith Sigmon’s death sentence, which was set for 6 p.m.

The state is one of five that allow execution by firing squad, with only three such executions occurring nationwide since 1977, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Sigmon elected firing squad under the state’s so-called choice provisions, which require a death row inmate to chose between electrocution, lethal injection, and firing squad. The state supreme court has ...