SC Supreme Court will not halt upcoming execution; activists call for clemency

Rev. David Kennedy, head of the Laurens County NAACP and New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church, speaks during a news conference Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA — The state Supreme Court will not halt the state’s first execution in 13 years over an inmate’s claims of new evidence and legal errors, the court said in a Thursday order .

Freddie Owens, who changed his legal name to Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, is scheduled to die Sept. 20 by lethal injection . Unless his attorneys file another motion to halt his execution that convinces the high court, the only way to prevent his execution would be for the governor to grant him clemency.

Gov. Henry McMaster has declined to say whether he will give Owens clemency, saying he will announce his decision minutes before Owens is scheduled to die. Civil rights groups are circulating a petition asking McMaster to give Owens a lighter sentence.

“Any alternative is better than the death penalty!” reads the petition circulated by South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Owens has been scheduled for execution twice before, both times in 2021. The state Supreme Court halted both executions amid questions about the legality of the available execution methods. The high court resolved those questions in a July order , allowing executions to resume.

Five other inmates have exhausted their appeals processes, meaning the high court can schedule them for execution. The Supreme Court said it will wait at least five weeks between issuing death warrants after inmates’ attorneys expressed concern about back-to-back executions.

Requests for stays

Owens’ attorneys claimed to have unearthed new evidence about his 1999 trial, at which Owens was convicted of fatally shooting gas station clerk Irene Graves, a mother of three, during a string of robberies two years prior.

Steven Golden, who was robbing the gas station alongside Owens, was the only eyewitness. He told attorneys last month he had a secret agreement with prosecutors saying they would give him a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against Owens.

A juror in the original trial also told attorneys she had seen a stun belt around Owens’ waist, which attorneys argued could have implied Owens was guilty before the jury came to that conclusion.

In a second request, Owens’ attorneys contended prosecutors failed to prove Owens shot Graves, only that he was present at the time of the robbery. Because of that, and because more egregious crimes in other cases have led to life sentences or less, Owens’ sentence was excessive, they argued. They also noted the now-46-year-old was only 19 at the time of the robbery.

SC’s 1st inmate to be executed in 13 years will die by lethal injection, attorney decides

The court disagreed on all fronts. The evidence Owens’ attorneys presented as new was available throughout his normal appeals process and referenced in older court filings, the order reads.

Owens’ “assertion that he was somehow not a major participant in the murder is — to say the least — absurd,” the order continued: Not only did Owens go into the gas station with a gun, knowing that could lead to a killing, but witnesses identified him as the one to shoot Graves by the mask he wore.

In deciding Owens’ sentence was appropriate for the situation, the court considered not only the bare facts of the case but Owens’ other behavior. Included was the fact that Owens “admitted he brutally murdered his cellmate during the twenty-four-hour waiting period between his 1999 criminal conviction and his first sentencing trial,” the order reads.

Because of that, Owens’ attorneys did not meet the high bar needed to halt an execution once it is scheduled, the order reads.

Calls for clemency

McMaster told reporters soon after Owens’ execution was scheduled that he will not publicly share whether he will grant clemency until the day of the execution. About 15 minutes before Owens will be injected with a lethal drug, corrections officials will call McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson and ask whether Owens has any pending legal questions or if McMaster will grant him clemency.

Advocates from the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP and South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty hope a petition will convince McMaster to say “yes.” The petition , which the groups plan to give McMaster before Sept. 20, had just over 2,800 signatures as of Thursday.

“The governor has the unique authority to save the life of a South Carolinian, and we call on him to use the authority now and grant clemency to Khalil,” said Jace Woodrum, director of the state ACLU.

Along with repeating the arguments Owens’ attorneys made in asking the Supreme Court to pause his execution, civil rights leaders pointed to disparities in who is sentenced to death. People who are Black, poor or disabled are less likely to have the resources to defend themselves in court, often leading to a higher likelihood of being sentenced to death, said Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

“Freddie ‘Khalil’ Owens fits all three of these categories,” Taylor said during a Thursday news conference.

Raised in poverty, Owens was physically abused at home and later in the state’s juvenile justice system, his attorneys have said. He suffered “organic brain damage” at some point during his childhood, leaving lasting damage to his frontal lobe, which controls impulse control and emotional regulation, according to court filings.

His attorneys raised that issue in requests to halt Owens’ scheduled executions in 2021, but the state Supreme Court denied them without addressing the issue. The state can’t execute anyone considered incompetent, but that is a standard with a high bar, his attorneys have said.

“Individuals with intellectual, developmental, or psychiatric disabilities are often condemned without proper consideration of how their disabilities affect their behavior, understanding, and ability to participate meaningfully in their defense,” disability rights group AbleSC said in a statement calling for the governor to grant Owens a lighter sentence.

Civil rights leaders also pointed to the fact that Black people are disproportionately sentenced to death. Of the 282 people executed in South Carolina since 1912, 74% were Black and 26% were white, according to Department of Corrections data.

That gap has gotten smaller since executions resumed nationwide in 1976. Of the 42 people executed in the state since then, 38% were Black and 62% were white, though those numbers are still disproportionate in a state with a population that is 25% Black and 63% white, according to the Death Penalty Information Center .

Of the 32 men listed on South Carolina’s death row, 15 are Black and 17 are white, though one white prisoner is on death row in California for crimes committed in that state.

“We are asking our governor and all of those who participate with him: Have mercy,” said Rev. David Kennedy, who leads the Laurens County NAACP and New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church. “We execute justice. We don’t execute people.”

No South Carolina governor has granted clemency since at least 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, according to the Death Penalty Information Center .

Because the last execution in the state took place 13 years ago, this will be the first time McMaster will have to make that decision. The governor, however, has maintained his long-held support for the death penalty as a form of justice for victims’ families, especially after an inmate has exhausted their legal processes.

Still, advocates said they felt asking him was worth trying.

“There is always hope,” Taylor said.