Overview

• Mikal Mahdi, 42, is scheduled to be executed by firing squad at 6 p.m. ET today at Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina.
• Mahdi was convicted of ambushing and killing Capt. James Myers in 2004, shooting him multiple times and setting his body on fire.
• This will be the second firing squad execution in South Carolina this year, following Brad Sigmon’s execution in March, and the fifth such execution in the U.S. since 1977.
• Mahdi’s defense team argues that his traumatic childhood and personal growth in prison should have warranted clemency, but the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death sentence earlier this week.
• Mahdi chose the firing squad over lethal injection and electrocution, describing it as the 'lesser of three evils' due to concerns about the inhumanity of other methods.