In South Carolina, a man on death row is set to be executed, but the state does not have the lethal injection drugs needed to be administered on him.
The inmate has another option, aside from lethal injection, which is the state's default way for executions; he can also choose to die by electrocution by November 27.
Lethal injection drugs
The inmate, Richard Bernard Moore, has been sentenced to death for the murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery in Spartanburg in 1999.
However, South Carolina cannot carry out the execution on schedule for December 4 by lethal injection because the last dose of its drug to do so expired in 2013, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections.
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Moore has until November 27 to choose between electrocution or lethal injection, according to South Carolina's law. But if Moore does not choose, the default choice is lethal injection. As of November 19, Moore has not decided, as reported by US News.
Companies won't sell execution drugs
Chrysti Shain, the director of communications for the South Department of Corrections, told CNN that there is a reason why South Carolina does not have lethal injection drugs.
Shain said that companies would not sell execution drugs to South Carolina until their state law is changed to shield their identities from anti-death penalty activists, who have been effective in chilling the sale of drugs to departments of corrections across the United States.
Shain also said that a shield law would give the state another tool to go to suppliers and inform them their identity would be protected. All in all, 14 states have shield laws that protect company identities from carrying out death penalty orders.
According to Shain, the department had not had execution drugs since 2013, when their last drugs expired. Also, drugs the department got from another country were seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in 2011.
Moore's attorneys have filed a stay of his execution with the state Supreme Court saying that the state is trying to carry out the inmate's execution under a veil of secrecy in the middle of a global pandemic.
Attorneys Lindsey Vann, Hannah Freedman, and John Blume said in a joint statement that the South Carolina Department of Corrections refused to release any information about how it intends to carry out the execution.
They did not specify the type and source of lethal injection drugs, and they also did not tell about the status and testing of the electric chair. It could create the risk of torturous execution with no oversight.
The attorneys added that other states, including Tennessee and Texas, have delayed executions during the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid the unnecessary risk of spreading the virus through the many people needed to be involved in and witness an execution.
However, Shain said that the department is taking precautions due to COVID-19 and has an extensive coronavirus response plan.
Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina told ABC News that they asked the legislature to give a mechanism where if the drugs are not available then, the method of execution could default back to other means but has not passed.
McMaster said that he hopes that Director Sterling can get whatever he needs to comply with the state's law.
The state Supreme Court has yet to rule on the motion for a stay of the execution. The last inmate to be executed in the state was back in 2011.
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