07 December 2017 :

South Carolina doesn't have drugs for December execution of Bobby Wayne Stone. South Carolina Corrections Director Bryan Stirling, and Gov. Henry McMaster announced Monday the state doesn't have the drugs it needs for lethal injection and can't carry out an execution scheduled for December 1. That would be South Carolina's first execution in more than six years. State Supreme Court justices set a Dec. 1 execution date for Bobby Wayne Stone, a 52-year-old man on death row for killing Sgt. Charlie Kubala, a Sumter County sheriff's deputy. Kubala was killed in February 1996. Stone didn't deny shooting the officer but said his gun went off accidentally. The state's current injection protocol requires three drugs: pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. The state's supply of pentobarbital expired in 2013, and Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said Monday that four years of trying to find an additional supply has failed because drug companies won't sell if it is publicly known they are providing drugs for executions. Stirling has asked lawmakers for years to pass a bill allowing the state to keep the providers of execution drugs a secret.