“South Carolina Man Faces Inhumane Execution by Firing Squad: Legal Battle Over Appropriate Punishment”

Weiss added: “That’s the real injustice here, and that’s the real outrage here.”

Mahdi stole a gun and a car in Virginia on July 14, 2004, arrest records show. The next day, he shot and killed a North Carolina store clerk as the clerk was checking his identification. A couple of days later, he carjacked someone at an intersection in Columbia, South Carolina.

On July 18, 2004, while on the run after those crimes, Mahdi hid in the shed of Orangeburg, South Carolina, public safety officer James Myers. Mahdi ambushed Meyers when the officer returned from a birthday celebration for his wife, sister and daughter, prosecutors said.

Myers, 56, was shot eight or nine times, including twice in the head after falling to the ground. A pathologist testified that at least seven of the shots would have been fatal.

Mahdi then set Myers’ body on fire and ran away. Myers’ wife discovered her husband’s dead body in the shed, which they had used for the backdrop of their wedding.

On July 21, 2004, Mahdi was taken into custody in Florida. When one of the officers involved in his arrest learned what he was wanted for in South Carolina, he thanked Mahdi for not shooting at him. Mahdi told him that the only reason he did not was because he was skeptical that he could successfully shoot two officers and their K-9 and get away with it.

While behind bars, Mahdi was caught three times with tools he could have used to escape. One was an Allen wrench and the others were homemade handcuff keys, including one that was found under his tongue at his trial.

On death row, Mahdi stabbed a guard and struck another worker with a concrete block. On three occasions, prison staff found sharpened metal in his cell that could be used as a knife.

After he pleaded guilty to murder, Mahdi was sentenced by Judge Clifton Newman, who at the time told The Post and Courier that he was not sure he believed in the death penalty, but the case became bigger than his beliefs.

“My challenge and my commitment throughout my judicial career has been to temper justice with mercy and to seek to find the humanity in every defendant that I sentence,” Newman said as he handed down Mahdi’s punishment. “That sense of humanity seems not to exist in Mikal Deen Mahdi”

Once one of the busiest for executions, South Carolina resumed executions in September after a 13-year pause caused in part by the state having difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ concerns that they would have to disclose they had sold the drugs to state officials.

The state legislature then passed a shield law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers private. The legislature also approved the firing squad as another execution method over difficulties obtaining the drugs.

South Carolina has executed 47 inmates since the death penalty was resumed in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state was carrying out an average of three executions per year. Only nine states have killed more inmates.

If Mahdi runs out of legal appeals, including petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review the issues in the state high court’s ruling, his only remaining option would be for Republican Gov. Henry McMaster to reduce his sentence to life without parole, which Mahdi’s lawyers have already requested. But no South Carolina governor has granted clemency in the 49 years since the death penalty resumed in the U.S.

“I think Gov. McMaster has an opportunity to change that, and he should change it,” Weiss said.

A spokesperson for McMaster’s office confirmed to Fox News Digital that the governor had received the petition from Mahdi’s lawyers asking for clemency.

“As the governor has done previously, he will review and carefully consider the petition,” the spokesperson said.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the South Carolina Department of Corrections for comment.