A South Carolina man on death row who had been considering death by firing squad opted Friday for lethal injection instead after another inmate appeared to linger before dying when bullets apparently missed his heart.
Stephen Stanko’s attorneys told him that lethal injection would feel like drowning when a lethal dose of pentobarbital is injected into the inmate’s veins and there’s a rush of fluid into the lungs.
Medical experts hired by the state have said the drugs render an inmate unconscious before the inmate feels any pain, but experts hired by inmates have said the rush of fluid can feel like drowning.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a delay to his June 13 execution Wednesday that was requested so he could learn more about his options.
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In addition to lethal injection and firing squad, the convicted double murderer could have also chosen the electric chair.
An autopsy on Mikal Mahdi, the killer of an off-duty police officer executed by firing squad in April, showed the inmate may have been in excruciating pain for up to a minute, much longer than the expected 15 seconds to lose consciousness, after all the bullets missed his heart, his lawyers said, calling it “botched.”
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Stanko had been sentenced to death twice for two separate murders.
In April 2006, Stanko, 57, beat and strangled girlfriend Laura Ling to death and raped her teenage daughter and slit her throat. The daughter survived and testified against him at his trial.
Hours after the murder, he went to his 74-year-old friend Henry Turner’s home, shot him to death and stole his truck.
South Carolina resumed executions in September after a 13-year break after it ran out of lethal injection drugs and pharmacies refused to provide more unless a new secrecy law protected their privacy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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