Mikal Mahdi, South Carolina inmate convicted in two separate 2004 murders, executed by firing squad

South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday after appeals were denied by the state and U S Supreme Courts earlier this week Mikal Mahdi was convicted in the killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County South Carolina and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem North Carolina He was sentenced to death for the murder of the officer and life in prison for the clerk's murder Mahdi had the choice of dying by lethal injection the electric chair or firing squad and he chose the latter The Associated Press informed that he did not give a final report nor look at the nine people witnessing his execution before a hood was put over his head and shots were fired by three prison employees who volunteered for the act He was declared dead less than four minutes later Prison administrators released that he requested ribeye steak cooked medium mushroom risotto broccoli collard greens cheesecake and sweet tea for his last meal CONDEMNED SC MAN'S CIRCUMSTANCE ABOUT 'APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT' AS HE AWAITS 'INHUMANE' FIRING SQUAD EXECUTION LAWYER Mahdi was sentenced to death in after he admitted to killing off-duty Orangeburg Department of Society Safety Capt James Myers on his property on July Myers had been shot at least eight times and his body was burned when his wife discovered him in their shed which was near a gas station where Mahdi attempted to purchase gas with a stolen credit card He left a bus he had carjacked in Columbia at the gas station and was later arrested in Florida while driving Myers' unmarked police truck Mahdi also admitted to murdering convenience clerk Christopher Boggs three days before he killed Myers Boggs was shot in the head twice while checking Mahdi's ID according to The AP SECOND SOUTH CAROLINA INMATE CHOOSES EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD Mahdi's lawyers entered a final appeal to the South Carolina and the U S Supreme Courts but it was rejected earlier this week They argued that Mahdi was not fairly represented by his original lawyers as they did not call on relatives teachers or other people who knew him during the incident adding that they also ignored how the several months Mahdi spent in solitary confinement as a teen impacted him Prosecutors on the other hand declared Mahdi's nature was violence and disclosed he solved problems with brutality mentioning how he stabbed a prison guard and hit another worker with a concrete block during his years on death row He was also caught with tools that could have been used to escape including sharpened metal that could have acted as a knife prison records stated The execution on Friday marked the second time a South Carolina inmate has been put to death by firing squad in the past five weeks and the fifth execution overall in the state over the past eight months Following Mahdi's death the Palmetto State now has inmates on death row only one of those people has been sentenced to death in the past decade The Associated Press contributed to this account