Overview
- Bryant would be the third person this year to face the firing squad in South Carolina and the eighth execution since the state resumed executions in September 2024.
- Under state protocol, three volunteer shooters fire from about 15 feet with the target area over the heart.
- Attorneys in the Mahdi case allege the shooters largely missed his heart and that he suffered for over a minute, while prison officials say the procedure went as planned.
- Bryant has been on death row since 2008 after pleading guilty to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen in 2004 and to two additional murders from the same period.
- South Carolina added the firing squad during a 13-year pause in executions driven in part by difficulties obtaining lethal-injection drugs, which remain an option alongside the electric chair.