The governor of the US state of South Carolina on Friday approved a law requiring death row inmates to choose their method of execution.
The day before, 50 texts had been submitted for the approval of the elected, who chose to validate it first, reports
ABC News
.
Death row prisoners will have to opt for the electric chair or the firing squad.
The latter had not previously been in force in the State.
South Carolina is known for its particularly high rate of enforcement of court-ordered death sentences.
The method of lethal injection is traditionally used there.
However, no execution has taken place in the state for ten years because of a shortage of the liquid necessary to put the convicts to death.
The validity of this law has been contested
The new legislation could therefore allow the resumption of executions.
Two people detained on death row and having exhausted all their remedies also challenged the validity of the law in court on Monday.
They argued that only the lethal injection was applied when they were convicted.
The convicts therefore felt that it was illegal to force them to choose between other methods of killing.
Three capital executions took place on average each year in South Carolina between 1996 and 2009. The last one took place in May 2011. The substances used for lethal injections present in the state stockpile have expired since 2013. They are effect of sedating the convict before causing generalized muscle relaxation and cardiac arrest.
About 40 death row inmates are currently awaiting execution in South Carolina.
Supporters of the new law have argued that since the death penalty remains legal, it must be enforceable.
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