It is torture. Confining someone in solitary and then executing them is even more cruel.
Across several American states, the machinery of capital punishment is stirring again — not in the familiar form of lethal injection, but through methods long thought abandoned: the electric chair, the firing squad. Pharmaceutical companies, unwilling to supply execution drugs, have forced states into a grim improvisation, reviving instruments of death that courts and societies had largely set aside. The cases now moving toward resolution — a man choosing between bullets and electricity, a mother whose confession may have been coerced, an aging man broken by decades of solitary — ask not merely whether these individuals should die, but whether a society can execute justly when the very means of execution have become a matter of desperate invention.
- Richard Moore, a Black man convicted of a 1999 robbery-murder, has been forced to choose between the electric chair and a firing squad — a decision his lawyers call a constitutional violation before the first shot is fired.
- Pharmaceutical manufacturers' refusal to supply lethal injection drugs has quietly dismantled the standard method of execution, pushing states to resurrect practices unused for a generation or more.
- In Texas, Melissa Lucio faces execution for a child's death that her advocates — including the Innocence Project — argue was an accident, her conviction built on a coerced confession and disputed forensic science.
- Carl Wayne Buntion, seventy-eight and physically deteriorating after two decades in solitary confinement, is scheduled to die for a crime committed thirty years ago, raising the question of whether prolonged isolation followed by execution constitutes torture.
- Legal challenges are converging simultaneously across multiple states, testing whether capital punishment as currently practiced can withstand constitutional scrutiny — or whether its quiet decline is about to become something more permanent.
Richard Moore, a fifty-seven-year-old Black man in South Carolina, faces execution on April 29 for a 1999 robbery-murder. The state offered him a choice between the electric chair and a firing squad — he chose the firing squad. His lawyers are challenging both options in court, arguing they constitute cruel and unusual punishment. The reason such a choice exists at all is distinctly modern: pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply the drugs used in lethal injections, forcing states to reach back toward methods many had not used in decades. South Carolina's electric chair last operated in 2008; firing squads have been used only three times nationwide since 1976.
The numbers surrounding capital punishment in America tell a story of gradual retreat — seventeen executions in 2020, eleven in 2021, three so far this year. Yet the cases now approaching resolution suggest that decline is neither complete nor inevitable. In Texas, Melissa Lucio, a fifty-three-year-old mother of fourteen, is scheduled to die on April 27 for the 2007 death of her two-year-old daughter. She says her confession came after five hours of coercive interrogation and that her daughter died from a fall — not a murder. The Innocence Project has taken up her case, and her attorney has stated plainly that the crime for which Lucio was convicted never occurred.
Also scheduled for execution in Texas is Carl Wayne Buntion, seventy-eight years old, condemned for killing a Houston police officer in 1991. He does not deny his guilt. What his lawyers contest is the meaning of executing a frail, isolated man thirty years after his crime — a man who has spent the last two decades locked in his cell for twenty-three hours a day. As one advocate put it, sentencing someone to death was never meant to include decades of solitary confinement as a prelude. Texas has carried out 573 executions since 1976, more than any other state. Melissa Lucio, if executed, would become only the eighteenth woman put to death in America since that year.
These cases — a forced choice between archaic methods, a disputed confession, a life hollowed out by isolation — are moving through the courts at the same moment, each pressing the same underlying question: whether capital punishment, as it is now being administered, can endure the scrutiny the Constitution demands.
The machinery of capital punishment in America had grown quiet, but it is grinding back to life—and in ways that haven't been seen in decades. Richard Moore, a fifty-seven-year-old Black man, sits in a South Carolina prison cell facing an April 29 execution date for a 1999 robbery-murder. The state has given him a choice that reads like something from another century: the electric chair or a firing squad. On Friday, Moore chose the bullets. His lawyers are now fighting both options in court, arguing they amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution.
The reason for this grim menu is straightforward and modern: pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply the drugs used in lethal injections. For years, that method had become the standard way American states carried out death sentences. But manufacturers, facing pressure and ethical objections, have cut off the supply. States that still practice capital punishment have begun dusting off older execution methods, some of which haven't been used in a generation or more. South Carolina's electric chair hasn't been used since 2008. Firing squads have been employed only three times in the entire country since 1976—all in Utah.
Lindsey Vann, one of Moore's attorneys, called both methods "antiquated and barbaric," pointing out that virtually every American jurisdiction has abandoned them. The legal argument is straightforward: these are not the methods the courts approved when they reinstated capital punishment in 1976. They are, in essence, a workaround born of desperation.
The numbers tell a story of decline interrupted. Three people have been executed in the United States so far this year. In 2021, there were eleven. In 2020, seventeen. The trend has been downward for years. Yet the cases now moving through the system suggest the decline may be reversible, and they raise profound questions about who gets executed and why.
In Texas, Melissa Lucio, a fifty-three-year-old Mexican-American mother of fourteen children, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on April 27 for the death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah, in 2007. Lucio says she confessed only after five hours of police interrogation, under coercion. She maintains the girl died from a fall down the stairs—an accident, not a murder. The Innocence Project, which fights wrongful convictions, has taken up her case. So has Kim Kardashian, who has appealed to Texas Governor Greg Abbott for clemency. Vanessa Potkin, Lucio's attorney, stated plainly: "The state extracted an unreliable confession and used false scientific evidence to convict Melissa Lucio of a crime that she did not commit and that, in fact, never occurred. What we know today is this: Mariah died from medical complications following an accidental fall. She was not murdered."
Also on Texas's execution calendar is Carl Wayne Buntion, seventy-eight years old, scheduled to die on April 21 for killing a Houston police officer in 1991. Buntion does not dispute his guilt. What his lawyers dispute is whether executing him now—thirty years after the crime, after two decades in solitary confinement—serves any legitimate purpose. He is frail, they argue. He suffers from arthritis, vertigo, hepatitis, sciatic nerve pain, and cirrhosis. He is no danger to anyone. Yet Texas law requires the state to show that executing him is necessary to prevent future harm. Burke Butler, the executive director of the Texas Public Defenders Office, framed the deeper issue: "When someone is sentenced to death, the jury is not sentencing them to thirty, forty, or fifty years of solitary confinement and then death. It is torture. Worldwide, solitary confinement is widely accepted as very cruel. Confining someone in solitary and then executing them is even more cruel."
Buntion has spent the last twenty years locked in his cell twenty-three hours a day. Since 1976, Texas has carried out 573 executions—more than any other state. Virginia, which abolished capital punishment last year, is second with 113. Of the more than 1,540 people executed nationwide since 1976, only seventeen have been women. Melissa Lucio could become the eighteenth. These cases—Moore's choice between two archaic methods, Lucio's disputed confession, Buntion's decades of isolation—are now moving through the courts simultaneously, each raising questions about whether the death penalty, as currently administered, can survive constitutional scrutiny.
Notable Quotes
Antiquated and barbaric methods of execution that virtually all American jurisdictions have left behind— Lindsey Vann, attorney for Richard Moore, on electric chair and firing squad executions
The state extracted an unreliable confession and used false scientific evidence to convict Melissa Lucio of a crime that she did not commit— Vanessa Potkin, Melissa Lucio's attorney
When someone is sentenced to death, the jury is not sentencing them to thirty, forty, or fifty years of solitary confinement and then death. It is torture.— Burke Butler, executive director of Texas Public Defenders Office
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why are states suddenly reaching for methods they abandoned years ago?
Because the drug companies won't play along anymore. Lethal injection was supposed to be the humane option, the modern way. But manufacturers got pressure—ethical concerns, boycotts, bad publicity. So states that still want to execute people are stuck. They can't use the method they've been using. So they go backward.
And the people facing execution have no say in this?
They get a choice, technically. Moore chose firing squad over electrocution. But his lawyers are arguing both choices violate the Constitution. It's a choice between two things the country has essentially rejected.
What's the actual legal argument?
Cruel and unusual punishment. The Constitution forbids it. These methods are old, they're unreliable, they're painful. The courts approved lethal injection back in 1976 when capital punishment came back. They didn't approve going back to the electric chair or firing squads. So the argument is: you can't just switch methods because the first one became inconvenient.
And the cases like Melissa Lucio—how does that fit in?
It's a different kind of problem. She confessed under interrogation, but she says it was coerced. The evidence that convicted her—the science—is now disputed. She might be innocent. And she's about to be executed. That's not about the method. That's about whether the right person is even on death row.
So the system is breaking down on multiple fronts.
Yes. The mechanics are failing—states can't execute the way they've been executing. And the justice is failing—people with real doubts about their guilt are still being scheduled to die. It's all coming to a head at once.