Long a method of execution associated with political terror or military justice, a firing squad is set to kill a South Carolina inmate on Friday, the second time the state will have carried out that method in the past five weeks.
Mikal Mahdi was sentenced to die 20 years ago for the ambush killing of an off-duty police officer. He will be the fifth inmate executed by South Carolina in less than eight months as the state makes its way through prisoners who ran out of appeals during an unintended 13-year pause on the death penalty.
