A pathologist hired by death row inmates' attorneys says a South Carolina man executed by firing squad was conscious and likely in extreme pain for up to a minute.

Mikal Mahdi was the second man in South Carolina to be executed by a three-person firing squad on April 11, after admitting to killing an off-duty police officer in 2004.

According to a status report filed by Mikal Mahdi’s lawyers, the autopsy and eyewitness accounts of his death raise several questions about the execution.