COLUMBIA — Condemned murderer Stephen Bryant has chosen to die by firing squad on Nov. 14, which puts South Carolina on track to tie Utah for the most gunfire executions in the modern history of the U.S. death penalty.

Bryant, 44, was sentenced to death in 2008 after pleading guilty to killing Clifton Gainey, Willard Tietjen and Christopher Burgess during a weeklong crime spree in Sumter County two decades ago.

If Bryant’s execution pushes through, he would become the third S.C. death row inmate in state history to be killed by firing squad. The first, Brad Sigmon, was executed in March , followed by Mikal Mahdi in April.

The state gives condemned inmates the option of choosing their execution method: lethal injection, firing squad or the electric chair. The method defaults to the

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