South Carolina inmates want executions paused while new lethal injection method is studied

By JEFFREY COLLINS
Associated Press

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Lawyers for six death row inmates out of appeals in South Carolina are asking the state Supreme Court to not immediately restart executions after the state announced it has a drug to restart lethal injections. The attorneys want the justices to give full consideration to the state’s new lethal injection rules as well as the electric chair and firing squad. The state says it will now use the sedative pentobarbital instead of the three-drug combination it used in the past. South Carolina hasn’t executed an inmate in 12 years after the drugs it was using expired and no one was willing to sell them more if they could be publicly identified.