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USA - South Carolina. Mikal Mahdi, 42, Black, was executed
April 11, 2025: April 11, 2025 - South Carolina. Mikal Mahdi, 42, Black, was executed
By firing squad
Mahdi was sentenced to death in 2006 after he pleaded quilty in the July 2004 killing of 56-year-old Capt. James Myers, an off-duty police officer.
The firing squad put a hood over Mikal Mahdi's head and shot him in the heart simultaneously with three bullets, and he was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. ET. His attorney, who witnessed the execution, called it "barbaric" and said it was "a horrifying act that belongs in the darkest chapters of history, not in a civilized society."
Mahdi's execution marked South Carolina's second this year using a firing squad, though it's just the fifth in the U.S. since 1977. South Carolina carried out the firing squad execution execution of Brad Keith Sigmon last month in what was the first execution to use the method in the country in 15 years.
Mahdi's attorneys had been arguing that he should be spared because he never got the mental health care he "desperately needed" as a child who was diagnose with major depressive disorder at the age of 9, repeatedly threatened suicide and endured "extraordinary abuse and trauma."
Under execution protocols, Mahdi sat restrained in a metal chair, a hood over his head, in the corner of a room shared by the state's electric chair, witnesses to the execution reported.
He delivered no last words.
The firing squad team − three voluntary corrections staff − stood behind a wall with loaded rifles 15 feet from Mahdi. The wall has an opening for the weapons.
The corrections officers each fired a bullet at a target over his heart.
An Associated Press reporter who witnessed the execution said that Mahdi cried out as the shots hit him and then groaned twice about 45 seconds after that. Mahdi continued to breath for about 80 more seconds "before he appeared to take one final gasp," AP reported, adding that Mahdi died less than four minutes after the shots rang out.
Five states − South Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho − have legalized firing squads as an execution method, most recently Idaho in 2023. A new bill proposed in Florida could pave the way for firing squad executions in that state, as well.
On March 7, South Carolina executed Brad Keith Sigmon by firing squad, the first execution in the U.S. using the method since 2010 and only the fourth since 1977. The previous three were all carried out in Utah.
David Weiss, Mahdi's attorney, said his client chose the firing squad for Friday's execution because it was "the lesser of three evils," saying he risked being "burned and mutilated" in an electric chair or "suffering a lingering death" by lethal injection.
On July 14, 2004, Mahdi − then just 21 years old − began a crime spree that spanned four states and included two murders.
Mahdi stole a neighbor's gun and station wagon in his home state of Virginia and headed to North Carolina, where he fatally shot gas station clerk Christopher Jason Boggs. Mahdi then went to South Carolina, carjacked a man and drove to a gas station, where he spent at least 45 minutes struggling to get gas with a rejected credit card.
A store clerk called police, prompting Mahdi to flee and ditch the car. Shortly after, Mahdi arrived at Myers' farm. Mahdi broke into Myers' shed, where he found guns and laid in wait for the 56-year-old, who had been at the beach that day celebrating the birthdays of his wife, sister and daughter, court records say.
When Myers arrived at the shed, Mahdi attacked, shooting him nine times, pouring diesel fuel on his body and setting him on fire before stealing his police truck and multiple guns, court records say.
Mahdi becomes the 3rd person executed this year in South Carolina, the 48th since the state resumed executions in 1985, the 12th inmate put to death this year in the USA, the 1,619th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
https://www.aol.com/attorneys-ask-tennessee-governor-pause-203551037.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmluZy5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAI4SecIiFo-u8ClnT6Ah9jVJTfjpOqvOv6ELMLv7xEsewVVCp1Xrf_PjZReGDay-3Yu65GUq4UH0kJc5z0U1J3LUEQFPMYZwHyqVex_Xr72IFYaJi_HxuGpC5kkACJsIkgGSwq6bvMvv7VLF_0fdtCf_JMbnH-CGmDljuLFQU9ig (Source: Usa Today, 11/04/2025)
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