4 hours ago
5
Mikal Mahdi was executed by a firing squad of three South Carolina Department of Corrections employees on April 11. An autopsy report shows that the bullets did not stop his heart and might have caused pain and suffering while he was still conscious. Mahdi is seen here in 2023 at the Broad River Correctional Facility in Columbia, S.C. David Weiss hide caption
toggle caption
David Weiss
Editor's note: This story includes detailed descriptions of executions.
A South Carolina man executed last month by firing squad may have suffered for an extended period of time before dying because shooters largely missed his heart, an autopsy commissioned by the state shows.
Mikal Mahdi died on April 11 after being shot by a three-person firing squad. But an autopsy revealed two wounds on his chest, not three. None of the bullets hit his heart directly, as is supposed to happen during the execution. Instead, the wounds caused damage to his liver and other internal organs, and allowed his heart to keep beating. Pathologists say the injuries likely caused the prisoner pain and suffering while he was still conscious.
"He's not going to die instantaneously from this," said Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist who reviewed the autopsy documents for NPR. "I think that it took him some time to bleed out."
On May 8, lawyers for Mahdi notified the South Carolina Supreme Court that the execution was "botched." They cited the state's autopsy and a forensic report that Mahdi's lawyers commissioned from another pathologist, Dr. Jonathan Arden.
"Mr. Mahdi did experience excruciating conscious pain and suffering for about 30 to 60 seconds after he was shot," Arden wrote in his analysis of the state autopsy.
The constitution in South Carolina, like the U.S. Constitution, bans cruel or unusual punishment. In 2021, the state passed a law allowing prisoners to choose the firing squad as a method of execution, in addition to the electric chair and lethal injection. Prisoners challenged the law in court.
In 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that all three methods were legal, writing that the firing squad was not cruel because a prisoner would not suffer longer than 15 seconds.
"The evidence before us convinces us—though an inmate executed via the firing squad is likely to feel pain, perhaps excruciating pain—that the pain will last only ten to fifteen seconds," the justices wrote, adding that it would be true "...unless there is a massive botch of the execution in which each member of the firing squad simply misses the inmate's heart."
"A massive botch is exactly what happened to Mikal Mahdi," wrote Mahdi's lawyers in the May 8 filing.
As for why Mahdi's body showed two wounds from the execution rather than three, a doctor noted in the comments section on the autopsy commissioned by the state that "it is believed that" two bullets went through one wound.
The two wounds on Mahdi's body were described in the autopsy as being almost exactly the same size. Pathologists who reviewed the report expressed doubt that two bullets went through precisely the same, small hole.
"I think the odds of that are pretty minuscule," Wigren said.
This photo provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections shows the state's death chamber in Columbia, S.C., including a firing squad chair to the left of the electric chair. South Carolina Department of Corrections/AP hide caption
toggle caption
South Carolina Department of Corrections/AP
One month before Mahdi was shot, on March 7, another South Carolina death row prisoner, Brad Sigmon, became the first person to die by the state's firing squad. His lawyer said Sigmon believed the firing squad was a better option than lethal injection, a method plagued by problems in South Carolina and across the country.
Autopsy reports for two previous executions by lethal injection indicated both prisoners required multiple doses of the sedative pentobarbital to die, and the process took more than 10 minutes. An NPR review of more than 200 autopsies of executed prisoners found that prisoners' lungs fill with fluid after being injected with the drugs meant to stop their hearts, which doctors say creates a sensation similar to drowning.
After Sigmon's death, the state employed the same company to conduct the autopsy report as they did for Mahdi. NPR reviewed more than 20 photos taken as part of Sigmon's autopsy. The images included multiple X-ray photographs, pictures of the clothes that Sigmon was wearing when he was executed, photos of Sigmon's internal organs and photos of bullet fragments recovered from his body. The photos clearly indicate there were three bullet wounds on Sigmon's body, all near his heart.
By contrast, in Mahdi's case, only one photo, showing two bullet wounds in Mahdi's lower chest, was shared with his lawyers. There were no X-rays, pictures of internal organs or images of his clothes or bullet fragments.
"It would be one thing if the previous executions had similar documentation, but they didn't," said David Weiss, one of Mahdi's lawyers. "It's not fully clear what happened. Did one of the gunmen not fire that one? Did their gun get jammed? Did they miss? We just have no idea at this point."
The South Carolina Department of Corrections did not respond to NPR's request for comment.
Protestors demonstrate outside the scheduled execution of inmate Brad Sigmon in Columbia, S.C., on March 7. Chris Carlson/AP hide caption
toggle caption
Chris Carlson/AP
Weiss was present at Mahdi's execution on April 11. He said when the curtain to the death chamber was pulled back, Mahdi was sitting down and pushing against his restraints. Weiss recalled thinking the target seemed to be placed low on Mahdi's chest.
When the shots were fired, Mahdi cried out, then started breathing heavily. He groaned multiple times before his body froze. Someone checked for a pulse then declared Mahdi dead. Weiss said he neither heard nor saw a ricochet.
The account matches descriptions from other witnesses.
Jeffrey Collins, a reporter for the Associated Press, observed Mahdi cry out after the shots. The target, which was white with a red bull's-eye, was pushed into the wound in his chest. Collins reported that Mahdi groaned twice about 45 seconds later, and continued to breathe for another 80 seconds before he appeared to take a final gasp.
"Both the forensic medical evidence and the reported eyewitness observations of the execution corroborate that Mr. Mahdi was alive and reacting longer than was intended or expected," Arden concluded in his report.
Weiss said that Mahdi gave his legal team permission to share the autopsy with the public following his execution. His lawyers hope that the information might help prevent another execution like his.
"They largely missed our client's heart," Weiss said. "I hope we can figure out a way to ensure this doesn't have to happen to anybody else."
Though there are no upcoming executions currently scheduled in South Carolina, Utah, Oklahoma, Idaho and Mississippi also allow executions by firing squad. On May 1, the Mississippi Supreme Court scheduled the execution of its longest-serving death row prisoner for June 25 and did not specify the method of execution.
