South Carolina wants to restart executions by firing squad, electric chair and lethal injection. The state has not carried out an execution in almost 13 years due to a lack of drugs to kill prisoners.
Lawyers for the inmates will argue that the old electric chair is cruel and unusual punishment. Inmates argue that pentobarbital, compounded and mixed, has a shelf life of about 45 days. If it is too weak, the drug molecules can form small clumps that would cause severe pain when injected.