Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo by Francisco Goya at the Prado. Public Domain.

What says the law? You will not kill. How does it say it? By killing!

– Victor Hugo

Brad Keith Sigmon never denied his guilt. He never claimed to be innocent in the 2001 murders of Gladys and David Larke, the parents of his former girlfriend. He didn’t claim ineffectiveness of counsel. He didn’t blame the murders on his crack addiction or a history of childhood trauma abuse. At the end of his trial, Sigmon stood up and confessed to his heinous crime: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I am guilty. I have no excuse for what I did. It’s my fault and I’m not trying to blame nobody else for it, and I’m sorry.”

But Sigmon did object to being put to death by the state of South Carolina. As a Christian, he believed his own life had value, even after having committed an atrocious crime. He felt he still had something to contribute, even in the restricted society of prison. He feared that his execution would cause even more pain and anguish to his family.

However, his pleas to continue living were rejected, first by state and federal courts and then by South Carolina’s Governor, Henry McMaster. McMaster refused to commute his sentence or, after 23 years in prison, grant him clemency.

No confession or acts of contrition would assuage the politicians who demanded his death, an execution that even the daughter of the slain couple objected to. In the end, the only choice left to Sigmon was how he would be killed. And even that was a cruel choice, a final infliction of mental torture.

The state of South Carolina presented Sigmon with three options: be burned to death in an ancient electric chair, endure prolonged spasms and seizures as poison is injected into his body or have his heart blown apart by a firing squad. According to Sigmon’s lawyer, Gerald “Bo” King, Sigmon eventually made the harrowing decision to be executed by firing squad, fearing that he would “burn and cook him alive” and that the drugs used in lethal injections result in a painful and protracted death, assuming his executioners could find a vein into which to drip the deadly poison. In South Carolina’s three previous executions by lethal injection with phenobarbital, it took the condemned at least 20 minutes to be pronounced dead.

Brad has no illusions about what being shot will do to his body,” said King. “He does not wish to inflict that pain on his family, the witnesses, or the execution team. But, given South Carolina’s unnecessary and unconscionable secrecy, Brad is choosing as best he can. There’s no justice here. Everything about this barbaric, state-sanctioned atrocity – from the choice to the method itself – is abjectly cruel. We should not just be horrified – we should be furious.”

Sigmon was an Army brat from South Carolina, born to a teenage mother and abusive, alcoholic father, whose escalating violence was eventually directed at Sigmon and his younger siblings. The Sigmon family moved from Army base to Army base, including a stint in the Philippines.

The marriage ended in divorce, and Brian divided his time between living with his mother and father until high school, when he dropped out two months shy of graduating to get married. The young couple soon had a son and by all accounts Sigmon was a dutiful and attentive dad.

But the marriage was not a happy one, marred by marital spats and Sigmon’s increasing use of alcohol and cocaine, and ended in divorce. Sigmon racked up........

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