March 14, 2025 • 13 mins
Clint Armitage tackles the complex and controversial topic of the death penalty through the lens of a recent execution in South Carolina. The episode centers around the case of Keith Sigmon, the first inmate in 15 years to be executed by firing squad in the United States, after being convicted of a brutal double homicide in 2001.
Clint begins by presenting a gripping news clip detailing the execution process, highlighting the historical significance of this method in the context of modern-day capital punishment. As he unpacks the details surrounding Sigmon's heinous crime, including the tragic impact on the victims' family, Clint encourages listeners to reflect on the moral and ethical implications of the death penalty.
Throughout the episode, Clint poses challenging questions about the role of Christians in the conversation surrounding capital punishment. He shares insights from Sigmon's final statement, where Sigmon calls for an end to the death penalty, emphasizing the shift from Old Testament law to the New Testament's message of love and redemption. Clint explores whether Christians should support the death penalty, considering biblical teachings and the nature of justice and mercy.
As the discussion unfolds, Clint invites listeners to contemplate the psychological burden faced by correctional officers who volunteer for such executions, prompting deeper reflections on faith, morality, and personal conviction. He also addresses the nuanced nature of sin and justice, emphasizing the importance of understanding both the physical and spiritual consequences of our actions.
Tune in to this compelling episode of the Radio Coffee House to engage with these critical questions and discover how faith intersects with some of society's most pressing issues. Join Clint as he navigates the complexities of justice, mercy, and the Christian response to the death penalty.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
What's up? What's up everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee
House coming back to you again for another episode. This time
we're going to be talking about something that uh, was pretty recent. It
(00:23):
was an execution, a firing
squad that executed a
prisoner out of South Carolina, the Department of
Corrections out there, because of a double homicide
that this dude committed. Dude's name was
Keith Sigmund. So we're going toa listen to a
little excerpt, a little audio clip from the
news mentioning it and then we're going to take a
(00:45):
look at uh, what was some of the
background on this case. And then let's see what uh, if
there's anything we can flesh out of
it with what the Bible says about it or what we think
about it as Christians. Let's listen to the clip.
Prison officials in South Carolina tonight are making history
(01:08):
on death row using three executioners with
rifles firing from 15ft away at the
same time to shoot this double murderer
in the heart. 67 year old Brad Sigmman chose
to die this way over the electric chair and lethal
injection. After a number of executions using
injections have gone wrong. States have had trouble
(01:28):
getting the right chemicals and prison officials in the death
chamber have struggled using needles and finding veins.
Sigmund's attorney says a firing squad felt.
More humane knowing that the bullets are
gonna break the bones in his chest and destroy his
heart or risk a 20
minute long execution strapped to a gurney
with your lungs filling with blood and fluid. This is
(01:51):
an impossible choice.
Across America, nearly two dozen states have a death
penalty and most of them are still by lethal injection.
But now five states allow firing squads. In
Idaho last year, they tried eight times to kill
this serial killer by lethal injection and
failed. On Wednesday, lawmakers in response passed
a bill to make a firing squad the state's primary death
(02:12):
penalty. In South Carolina tonight, Brad Sigmund's
ex girlfriend told USA Today to remember her
parents who he beat to death with a baseball
bat, saying that I didn't get to see them grow
old. Executions by
lethal injection can sometimes take hours. By comparison,
a firing squad as just minutes. It's America's
oldest method, uh, of state execution. Some would
(02:35):
say more efficient. And late word from South Carolina
tonight, this death sentence has been carried
out the first time a prisoner in America has been killed
by firing squad in the last 15 years.
Okay, let's talk about it. So the guy's name, I guess, is
Brad Keith Sigmman, but he goes by Keith Sigmman,
sounds like. And he was in South Carolina. He was a death row
inmate. Uh, he was convicted back in like
(02:57):
2001, 2002, for this
double homicide. And yeah, they just executed him
by firing squad. And he was the first, like that
news audio. The audio just said he's
the first inmate to be executed by firing
squad in the last 15 years.
And I guess he's the first inmate in South
(03:17):
Carolina to be executed by firing squad in
modern history, so. And the fourth
since 1977 in the. In
the US here. The other firing squads that happened
actually happened in Utah, I guess. So Utah
is where it's legal too, I guess. There's five states in
the union that allow firing squads
(03:38):
to execute prisoners on death row. So some of the
background here is that, uh, this guy, Brad
Keith Sigmund broke up with his girlfriend, or his
girlfriend broke up with him after about five years
of being together, and then he kind of just snapped
and ended up killing her parents. David and
Gladys Lar. They were in their home, uh,
(03:58):
because I guess they, uh, him and his girlfriend were living together.
And then she broke up with him, moved in with her parents, and then
he went to their home and then
took a baseball bat to both of
them and basically killed them
both by bludgeoning them with a, uh, with a baseball bat.
And then he kidnapped her, the girlfriend, and then she
escaped. Like, she jumped out of a moving car. And he said
(04:21):
he was actually planning to kill her. That was his, uh,
testimony to detectives back then. So he was gonna
kill her, but she actually survived because she jumped out of us a
moving vehicle when he had kidnapped her back in
2001, I guess he did plead guilty. He
said, quote, I have no excuse for what I did. It's my fault.
I'm not trying to blame anybody else for it. I'm sorry is what he was
saying back then. And his ex girlfriend,
(04:44):
Rebecca Armstrong recently
said that, uh, obviously what he did
ripped her family apart. I mean, obviously. Right.
And that, quote, he should answer for what he's
done, unquote. The thing is, she doesn't really believe in the
death penalty, so you kind of don't know exactly what she meant
by that. So the Department of Corrections in South
(05:05):
Carolina listed how it was going to
happen. The inmate'going to sit restrained in a
metal chair in the corner of a room shared with the
electric chair. I guess the electric chair can't be moved. So
they reinforce this area where the
electric chair is and made it possible
that a firing squad can actually utilize it
(05:25):
as well. So they
obviously did some ballistic additions to that room.
And, uh, they said there will be three members of the firing squad
team, a voluntary team.
They're going toa stand behind a wall with loaded rifles
15ft from the inmate. Oh, uh, the wall would
have openings where they can fire from that won't
(05:45):
be visible from the witness room. The inmate'going to be strapped
into a chair. A hood's going to be placed over his head.
A small aim point. Our target will be placed
over his heart by a member of the execution team. And
after the warden reads the execution order, the team'going toa fire.
And then after the shots, the doctor will examine the inmate. After the inmate
is declared dead, the curtain will be drawn and
(06:06):
witnesses escorted out. So that's how the
whole plan went for the execution.
Again, the last inmate in the US to be killed by firing squad was
in Utah, I guess, in 2010.
And there were only a couple others after that, or
I mean before that, 1977,
1996. So he was
executed at 6:08pm and, uh, the second
(06:28):
death row inmate that was executed in that state of South
Carolina this year, 67 years old at the
Broad River Correctional Institution. So this was his
statement. Quot I want my closing statement
to be one of love and, uh, a calling to my
fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.
An eye for an eye was used as justification
(06:49):
to the jury for seeking the death penalty.
At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that
was. Why? Because we no longer
live under the Old Testament law, but now live under the
New Testament.
Okay, so I want to, uh, I want to talk about a couple things. One
is the correctional officers, the correctional staff
that, uh, volunteered. Think about being
(07:10):
put in that position. U um, obviously again, a
volunteer status. So you're
volunteering to do this, which would make
that a little tough, I guess, uh, because
that's obviously something that may weigh on you and you don't
know until you actually do it. Another thing is,
is I wonder how I'd be for a Christian
to be able to go through with that intentionally. You
(07:33):
know, taking a life for a law enforcement officer
most of the time, if you're in the right mindset, is not
the issue, it's the actual act
that may trigger something that you weren't prepared
for. But that's where you got to be mentally prepared, right? To
be able to take a la. But in this case, we've got Correction
officers that volunteered to do this. So if you are
(07:53):
a Christian and uh, a correction officer in this facility,
would you volunteer for this position? Now, would that be
difficult? Would that be an easy choice for you to make, to
volunteer for it, to put yourself in that position?
Because it's not like you're defending yourself. Like, I can see no
problem with taking a life if you had to.
In that respect, this seems a little different
(08:13):
because it's not an active threat to
you. So that's an interesting way to think about
it. And could you do it, especially as a Christian, even if
you're not a Christian, could you do that knowing that you're not
necessarily defending yourself, you're executing an order
which soldiers do too, for a purpose, a
greater purpose. And in this case, same thing in
(08:33):
terms of a greater purpose of justice.
But I could see how that could be a little bit of
a mental issue for some people, officer or
not, that could be difficult to deal with.
I have no problem taking a life when I'm
defending life. But this is just an interesting
thought.
The other thing is, is how do you feel about the death penalty as a
(08:54):
Christian? Because he mentions that the
death penalty should be abolished in his closing statement
and he calls on fellow Christians to help end
the death penalty. And then he cites an eye for an eye. And
he says we're no longer bound by the Old Testament,
but we live under the New Testament. Which is correct. We have a new
covenant. Uh, however, the Old Testament and the
(09:15):
New Testament is the Bible, right?
They both need to be heated in terms
of what it says, what the theme says.
And to me, if you put the whole Bible,
if you were to encapsulate the whole Bible into
one word, I'd say love, right?
However, there are things in the
(09:35):
Bible that
address taken a life like he
mentionsed in the Old Testament. And then in the
New Testament is where he is
saying, hey, this is what we live under, the new covenant.
And it's true. God does not want anyone to perish.
He wants all to come to life, right? All
to come to him. But is that really
(09:58):
talking about physical life or
spiritual life or both? Because obviously,
you know, Jesus said that, that you don't need to worry about
the physical body. It's the one. It's, you know, the.
You don't have to worry about man. You have to worry about the one who can,
the one who can rid your soul. You only have to worry about
God, not man. And so
(10:19):
we have to worry about our spiritual
health more than a physical health. That's pretty
clear in the Bible. Your spiritual health is more important than your
physical health. Also, there's verses in the
Bible that talk about being subjected to the
government. And so if you commit this crime on
earth, you have to subject yourself to the government.
(10:39):
Well, if you are in a
society, a state, a country
that uses the death
penalty, you are subject to that. So it's a
difficult thing, right, to really get
a grasp on. And some people are staunch about one way or the
other. Some people say, no, no death penalty. And others said, no, death
penalty is fine. And in both cases, it's
(11:01):
still referencing our physical, not
necessarily the spiritual. The Bible also talks
about. I think it's in Jude, like verse 23
or something, where it talks about some people need to be saved
by getting scared, getting pulled out of the fire
with fear. And so some people need
those guardrails, those boundaries to be
set, because they make decisions based on that. And
(11:23):
so as Christians do, we support being a
society with rules and laws that include
death as a penalty. You know, like I said,
God says it many times to that, that we don't have to
worry about the person that can take our body. We need to
worry about the person that can take our soul. And so we
suffer in life. We have to endure things in life
(11:43):
physically, but the hope that we have is
spiritual. The hope that we have is not of this world,
but we are in this world, and there's consequences to
pay for decisions to make. So, like, I heard a pastor
talking to someone about sin, and the question
was, hey, is all sin the same or is there different
levels? And he said, well, I think there's different levels. And then so I started
(12:03):
thinking, okay, well, yeah, I think there's different degrees of
sin, but in order to
enter in and receive salvation, it's
a gift, right? So that's where sin is
sin. Because no matter what type of sin you do,
which everybody does sin somehow some way
within their lifetime, so they cannot receive
salvation unless they accept it as a gift from Jesus.
(12:26):
So in that way, sin is sin. However, there are
degrees of sin, especially in this world, on
this side of the grave, because there's consequences
that match the sin or supposed to match the sin.
Obviously, shoplifting is going to be handled differently than
murder. And so there is a different
sin consequence, especially on this side of the
grave. And that's the, the way I look at it. But either way, it's a
(12:49):
difficult, uh, thing. So, uh, let me know what you think. But
interesting that this dude chose a firing squad
and supposedly he was a Christian informal chaplain, I guess,
for death row. He was pronounced dead
within two minutes after the firing squad, which
is a lot faster than lethal injection and the
electric chair. So he was right in terms of, uh,
choosing that way for speed of execution. So, anyways,
(13:12):
that's what's going on right now in this world and how we kind of have to
navigate through it as Christians. And the question to pose would you
be a volunteer for that? And do you believe that the
death penalty is still something that we should follow through
with as Christians? And my name is Clint Armitage. This is the
Radio Coffeeh House. Thanks for hanging out. Until next time,
stay safe and God bless.
(13:39):
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show, where we're all about Jesus, coffee
and radio. We'll see you next time.
Welcome to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
What's up? What's up everybody? Clint Armitage with the Radio Coffee
House coming back to you again for another episode. This time
we're going to be talking about something that uh, was pretty recent. It
(00:23):
was an execution, a firing
squad that executed a
prisoner out of South Carolina, the Department of
Corrections out there, because of a double homicide
that this dude committed. Dude's name was
Keith Sigmund. So we're going toa listen to a
little excerpt, a little audio clip from the
news mentioning it and then we're going to take a
(00:45):
look at uh, what was some of the
background on this case. And then let's see what uh, if
there's anything we can flesh out of
it with what the Bible says about it or what we think
about it as Christians. Let's listen to the clip.
Prison officials in South Carolina tonight are making history
(01:08):
on death row using three executioners with
rifles firing from 15ft away at the
same time to shoot this double murderer
in the heart. 67 year old Brad Sigmman chose
to die this way over the electric chair and lethal
injection. After a number of executions using
injections have gone wrong. States have had trouble
(01:28):
getting the right chemicals and prison officials in the death
chamber have struggled using needles and finding veins.
Sigmund's attorney says a firing squad felt.
More humane knowing that the bullets are
gonna break the bones in his chest and destroy his
heart or risk a 20
minute long execution strapped to a gurney
with your lungs filling with blood and fluid. This is
(01:51):
an impossible choice.
Across America, nearly two dozen states have a death
penalty and most of them are still by lethal injection.
But now five states allow firing squads. In
Idaho last year, they tried eight times to kill
this serial killer by lethal injection and
failed. On Wednesday, lawmakers in response passed
a bill to make a firing squad the state's primary death
(02:12):
penalty. In South Carolina tonight, Brad Sigmund's
ex girlfriend told USA Today to remember her
parents who he beat to death with a baseball
bat, saying that I didn't get to see them grow
old. Executions by
lethal injection can sometimes take hours. By comparison,
a firing squad as just minutes. It's America's
oldest method, uh, of state execution. Some would
(02:35):
say more efficient. And late word from South Carolina
tonight, this death sentence has been carried
out the first time a prisoner in America has been killed
by firing squad in the last 15 years.
Okay, let's talk about it. So the guy's name, I guess, is
Brad Keith Sigmman, but he goes by Keith Sigmman,
sounds like. And he was in South Carolina. He was a death row
inmate. Uh, he was convicted back in like
(02:57):
2001, 2002, for this
double homicide. And yeah, they just executed him
by firing squad. And he was the first, like that
news audio. The audio just said he's
the first inmate to be executed by firing
squad in the last 15 years.
And I guess he's the first inmate in South
(03:17):
Carolina to be executed by firing squad in
modern history, so. And the fourth
since 1977 in the. In
the US here. The other firing squads that happened
actually happened in Utah, I guess. So Utah
is where it's legal too, I guess. There's five states in
the union that allow firing squads
(03:38):
to execute prisoners on death row. So some of the
background here is that, uh, this guy, Brad
Keith Sigmund broke up with his girlfriend, or his
girlfriend broke up with him after about five years
of being together, and then he kind of just snapped
and ended up killing her parents. David and
Gladys Lar. They were in their home, uh,
(03:58):
because I guess they, uh, him and his girlfriend were living together.
And then she broke up with him, moved in with her parents, and then
he went to their home and then
took a baseball bat to both of
them and basically killed them
both by bludgeoning them with a, uh, with a baseball bat.
And then he kidnapped her, the girlfriend, and then she
escaped. Like, she jumped out of a moving car. And he said
(04:21):
he was actually planning to kill her. That was his, uh,
testimony to detectives back then. So he was gonna
kill her, but she actually survived because she jumped out of us a
moving vehicle when he had kidnapped her back in
2001, I guess he did plead guilty. He
said, quote, I have no excuse for what I did. It's my fault.
I'm not trying to blame anybody else for it. I'm sorry is what he was
saying back then. And his ex girlfriend,
(04:44):
Rebecca Armstrong recently
said that, uh, obviously what he did
ripped her family apart. I mean, obviously. Right.
And that, quote, he should answer for what he's
done, unquote. The thing is, she doesn't really believe in the
death penalty, so you kind of don't know exactly what she meant
by that. So the Department of Corrections in South
(05:05):
Carolina listed how it was going to
happen. The inmate'going to sit restrained in a
metal chair in the corner of a room shared with the
electric chair. I guess the electric chair can't be moved. So
they reinforce this area where the
electric chair is and made it possible
that a firing squad can actually utilize it
(05:25):
as well. So they
obviously did some ballistic additions to that room.
And, uh, they said there will be three members of the firing squad
team, a voluntary team.
They're going toa stand behind a wall with loaded rifles
15ft from the inmate. Oh, uh, the wall would
have openings where they can fire from that won't
(05:45):
be visible from the witness room. The inmate'going to be strapped
into a chair. A hood's going to be placed over his head.
A small aim point. Our target will be placed
over his heart by a member of the execution team. And
after the warden reads the execution order, the team'going toa fire.
And then after the shots, the doctor will examine the inmate. After the inmate
is declared dead, the curtain will be drawn and
(06:06):
witnesses escorted out. So that's how the
whole plan went for the execution.
Again, the last inmate in the US to be killed by firing squad was
in Utah, I guess, in 2010.
And there were only a couple others after that, or
I mean before that, 1977,
1996. So he was
executed at 6:08pm and, uh, the second
(06:28):
death row inmate that was executed in that state of South
Carolina this year, 67 years old at the
Broad River Correctional Institution. So this was his
statement. Quot I want my closing statement
to be one of love and, uh, a calling to my
fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.
An eye for an eye was used as justification
(06:49):
to the jury for seeking the death penalty.
At that time, I was too ignorant to know how wrong that
was. Why? Because we no longer
live under the Old Testament law, but now live under the
New Testament.
Okay, so I want to, uh, I want to talk about a couple things. One
is the correctional officers, the correctional staff
that, uh, volunteered. Think about being
(07:10):
put in that position. U um, obviously again, a
volunteer status. So you're
volunteering to do this, which would make
that a little tough, I guess, uh, because
that's obviously something that may weigh on you and you don't
know until you actually do it. Another thing is,
is I wonder how I'd be for a Christian
to be able to go through with that intentionally. You
(07:33):
know, taking a life for a law enforcement officer
most of the time, if you're in the right mindset, is not
the issue, it's the actual act
that may trigger something that you weren't prepared
for. But that's where you got to be mentally prepared, right? To
be able to take a la. But in this case, we've got Correction
officers that volunteered to do this. So if you are
(07:53):
a Christian and uh, a correction officer in this facility,
would you volunteer for this position? Now, would that be
difficult? Would that be an easy choice for you to make, to
volunteer for it, to put yourself in that position?
Because it's not like you're defending yourself. Like, I can see no
problem with taking a life if you had to.
In that respect, this seems a little different
(08:13):
because it's not an active threat to
you. So that's an interesting way to think about
it. And could you do it, especially as a Christian, even if
you're not a Christian, could you do that knowing that you're not
necessarily defending yourself, you're executing an order
which soldiers do too, for a purpose, a
greater purpose. And in this case, same thing in
(08:33):
terms of a greater purpose of justice.
But I could see how that could be a little bit of
a mental issue for some people, officer or
not, that could be difficult to deal with.
I have no problem taking a life when I'm
defending life. But this is just an interesting
thought.
The other thing is, is how do you feel about the death penalty as a
(08:54):
Christian? Because he mentions that the
death penalty should be abolished in his closing statement
and he calls on fellow Christians to help end
the death penalty. And then he cites an eye for an eye. And
he says we're no longer bound by the Old Testament,
but we live under the New Testament. Which is correct. We have a new
covenant. Uh, however, the Old Testament and the
(09:15):
New Testament is the Bible, right?
They both need to be heated in terms
of what it says, what the theme says.
And to me, if you put the whole Bible,
if you were to encapsulate the whole Bible into
one word, I'd say love, right?
However, there are things in the
(09:35):
Bible that
address taken a life like he
mentionsed in the Old Testament. And then in the
New Testament is where he is
saying, hey, this is what we live under, the new covenant.
And it's true. God does not want anyone to perish.
He wants all to come to life, right? All
to come to him. But is that really
(09:58):
talking about physical life or
spiritual life or both? Because obviously,
you know, Jesus said that, that you don't need to worry about
the physical body. It's the one. It's, you know, the.
You don't have to worry about man. You have to worry about the one who can,
the one who can rid your soul. You only have to worry about
God, not man. And so
(10:19):
we have to worry about our spiritual
health more than a physical health. That's pretty
clear in the Bible. Your spiritual health is more important than your
physical health. Also, there's verses in the
Bible that talk about being subjected to the
government. And so if you commit this crime on
earth, you have to subject yourself to the government.
(10:39):
Well, if you are in a
society, a state, a country
that uses the death
penalty, you are subject to that. So it's a
difficult thing, right, to really get
a grasp on. And some people are staunch about one way or the
other. Some people say, no, no death penalty. And others said, no, death
penalty is fine. And in both cases, it's
(11:01):
still referencing our physical, not
necessarily the spiritual. The Bible also talks
about. I think it's in Jude, like verse 23
or something, where it talks about some people need to be saved
by getting scared, getting pulled out of the fire
with fear. And so some people need
those guardrails, those boundaries to be
set, because they make decisions based on that. And
(11:23):
so as Christians do, we support being a
society with rules and laws that include
death as a penalty. You know, like I said,
God says it many times to that, that we don't have to
worry about the person that can take our body. We need to
worry about the person that can take our soul. And so we
suffer in life. We have to endure things in life
(11:43):
physically, but the hope that we have is
spiritual. The hope that we have is not of this world,
but we are in this world, and there's consequences to
pay for decisions to make. So, like, I heard a pastor
talking to someone about sin, and the question
was, hey, is all sin the same or is there different
levels? And he said, well, I think there's different levels. And then so I started
(12:03):
thinking, okay, well, yeah, I think there's different degrees of
sin, but in order to
enter in and receive salvation, it's
a gift, right? So that's where sin is
sin. Because no matter what type of sin you do,
which everybody does sin somehow some way
within their lifetime, so they cannot receive
salvation unless they accept it as a gift from Jesus.
(12:26):
So in that way, sin is sin. However, there are
degrees of sin, especially in this world, on
this side of the grave, because there's consequences
that match the sin or supposed to match the sin.
Obviously, shoplifting is going to be handled differently than
murder. And so there is a different
sin consequence, especially on this side of the
grave. And that's the, the way I look at it. But either way, it's a
(12:49):
difficult, uh, thing. So, uh, let me know what you think. But
interesting that this dude chose a firing squad
and supposedly he was a Christian informal chaplain, I guess,
for death row. He was pronounced dead
within two minutes after the firing squad, which
is a lot faster than lethal injection and the
electric chair. So he was right in terms of, uh,
choosing that way for speed of execution. So, anyways,
(13:12):
that's what's going on right now in this world and how we kind of have to
navigate through it as Christians. And the question to pose would you
be a volunteer for that? And do you believe that the
death penalty is still something that we should follow through
with as Christians? And my name is Clint Armitage. This is the
Radio Coffeeh House. Thanks for hanging out. Until next time,
stay safe and God bless.
(13:39):
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show, where we're all about Jesus, coffee
and radio. We'll see you next time.
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