According to a pathologist hired by the inmates’ attorney for the inmates, the execution of the second shooting squad in South Carolina last month was conscious and could suffer great pain after the bullet missed the target and failed to quickly stop the heart.

Autopsy photos Mikal Mahdi's torso According to the pathologist's report, the three prison employees had only two distinct wounds, volunteered to join the shooting squad and carried out live ammunition in the April 11 execution. It filed a letter with the state Supreme Court on Thursday titled “Notice of Executions Being Deceived.”

Prison staff advised pathologists to perform an autopsy to indicate that two bullets entered the same site.

"The shooter missed the expected target area, and the evidence showed that he was hit by only two bullets, rather than the prescribed three. Therefore, the nature of the internal injury of the gunshot wound caused a longer process of death," pathologist Dr. Jonathan Arden was hired by a condemned criminal.

Arden said that could mean Mahdi took 30 to 60 seconds to lose consciousness - two to four times longer than 15 seconds longer than experts including Arden and experts hired by the state, and the state is expected to perform correctly.

During that time, Mahdi would suffer as his lungs attempted to expand and enter the fractured sternum and ribs, and move from "starvation" while the damaged lungs were damaged and failed to introduce the oxygen needed.

Death penalty witness Mahdi shouted loudly when he heard Mahdi shoot, groaning again after about 45 seconds, and then let out a last low moan before he seemed to have his last breath in 75 seconds.

Mahdi, 42, admitted that he killed Orangeburg public safety official James Myers in 2004, shooting at least eight times before burning his body. Miles' wife found him in the couple's Calhoun County shed, the backdrop of the wedding 15 months ago.

Prison officials showed no signs of problems with Mahdi's execution. Shield Law keeps many details secret, including the training and methods used by the shooting squad. A spokesman said Thursday they are working to respond to the documents.

The official autopsy did not include X-rays to allow independent verification of the results; only one photo took Mahdi's body without close-ups of the wound. Arden said in a summary of his findings that his clothes were not checked to determine where the target was placed and how it was consistent with the damage the bullet caused to the shirt.

"I noticed that the target was placed on Mikal's torso, and I remember thinking: 'I'm certainly not an expert in human anatomy, but in my opinion the target looked low.'"

Pathologist Dr. Bradley Marcus wrote in an official autopsy report that the cause of only two wounds is that one could be caused by two bullets entering the body at the same location. Marcus said he spoke with a prison official who asked not to be named and reported that when three volunteers fired squad members to practice, sometimes their target ended up with only one or two holes in three live shots.

Arden called it unheard of forty years in 40 years of inspecting the body, saying that Marcus told him during the conversation that the possibility was out of reach.

The autopsy only found damage in one of the four chambers of Mahdi's heart, the right ventricle. As the bullet continued to drop, his liver and pancreas suffered extensive damage.

"The entrance wound is located at the lowest area of ​​the chest, just above the boundary with the abdomen, which is an area with a small heart," Arden wrote.

Marcus also said during the conversation that no serious liver damage was expected and that he "expected the inlet wound to be higher on the chest."

By contrast, Brad Sigmon's autopsy, The first person to be shot and killed by stateArden said his heart was wiped out by showing three different bullet wounds. He added that autopsy reports in this case include X-rays, adequate photographs and a rough examination of the clothes.

Arden said that without X-rays or other internal scans, it would not be possible to emit additional light on the disposable hole proposition of the two poles.

Bradley refused to talk about his autopsy in time on the phone Thursday morning.

Weiss said that even after the pathologist had only two holes in his chest, he had barely done it during an autopsy. He asserted that obvious errors in the way they were executed were a major problem.

"His heart was missed and most likely only two-thirds were shot," Weiss said. "And I think that raises incredible questions about the types of training and supervision being conducted in the process."

"It was obvious to me when I was reading the autopsy report that this was an uninitiated person and there was a problem here. We should figure out what went wrong when you make the state perform the most serious, most serious type of function," Weiss said.

Weiss said Mahdi's body was cremated, preventing a second autopsy.

South Carolina allows condemned prisoners to choose whether to die through lethal injections, electric chairs or shooting squads. Sigmon's execution was the first shot anywhere in 15 years in the United States, and the fourth time since 1976, everyone else has happened in Utah. The method has deep and intense roots around the world, but is proposed by South Carolina correctional officers and is the most humane choice among the most viable options. In addition to the known issues ensuring legal lethal injection of drugs, autopsy shows that fatal injections can cause lungs to pour into the lungs and burns are found in the body after power.

Over the past year, three South Carolina inmates have chosen a fatal injection, but the past two have chosen a shooting squad, saying they are concerned about other methods — autopsy shows that the fatal injection can cause lungs to pour into the lungs and burns were found after the joints.

There are still 26 death row in South Carolina. Stephen Stanko, who has had two murders in Horry County and Georgetown County, has run out of appeal and may die in June.