13 March 2018 :

Senate passes SB 872 to use electric chair. The proposal passed 26-12 on Tuesday and faces a last procedural vote Wednesday before being sent to the House, where it is expected to face even less opposition. South Carolina law has empowered residents of death row to make a choice between lethal injection and the electric chair since 1995, so the lack of drugs enabled them to stay alive by choosing injections. Capital punishment essentially ended in 2011 in South Carolina, a state that had been averaging close to 2 executions a year. "He picks out the option that can't be carried out, extending his life indefinitely," complained a sponsor of the bill, state Sen. William Timmons. The drugs South Carolina uses to perform lethal injections expired a few years ago, and pharmacies have refused to sell the state new drugs, either because they are ethically against their use in executions, or because they don't want their names made public if they do sell them.