CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig Denounces ‘Inhumane’ South Carolina Bill that Revives Firing Squads

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig predicted Thursday that South Carolina’s “inhumane” proposal to bring back firing squads would be challenged in the courts.

The exchange came when CNN’s Victor Blackwell noted that South Carolina’s House passed a bill on Wednesday to revive firing squads for the execution of death-row inmates amid a shortage of lethal-injection drugs. “It’s just as inhumane as you convey it,” Honig replied. “This will be challenged in state courts under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.”

He also noted that he had participated in death-penalty cases as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Department of Justice, and decried executions as a “cruel” practice.

“I’ve been involved in death penalty cases on both sides,” he added. “I charged murder cases, tried murder cases that were death-eligible, and we asked the DOJ for permission not to seek the death penalty, which was always granted under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. … I’ve also been involved in defending a death penalty case, and I have been on death row, I have physically been inside the building where death row is, and it bothers me to see politicians score sort of cheap, symbolic points with cruel methods like this, and I don’t want to see this until somebody has been on death row and see what it’s like to be there and how cruel that situation is.”

The proposal in South Carolina passed the state’s Senate in March, which means it will reach Gov. Henry McMaster’s (R) desk after the Legislature finishes taking some procedural measures. McMaster has said he will sign it into law, which could make South Carolina one of four states — along with Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah — to allow the use of firing squads.

Watch above via CNN.