With South Carolina set to use firing squads for executions, what is the state of the death penalty in the U.S.?
South Carolina is now one of four states where those sentenced to die can stand in front of a firing squad, as diminishing supplies of lethal injection drugs lead U.S. states to find other methods for executions.
Many drug manufacturers are refusing to supply states with lethal injection drugs, moving them to re-think how to kill their inmates and yet still abide by America’s 8th Amendment constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
We take a look at the state of the death penalty in 2021, with Robert Dunham of the Death Penalty Information Center, professor and author Austin Sarat, and Kristina Roth of Amnesty International, as well as Randy Gardner, whose brother Ronnie Lee was the last American executed by a marksman in Utah in 2010.
You can watch the full episode of Banfield in the player above