‘He deserves to live’: South Carolina to execute first man in 13 years despite doubts raised by evidence

South Carolina is on track to execute a man on death row for the first time in 13 years, despite new evidence raising doubts about critical testimony used to secure his conviction.

Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah, 46, is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection on Friday, one of six executions that could move forward in the coming months in South Carolina, marking a brutal resurgence of capital punishment since the state’s last execution in 2011.

Allah, previously known as Freddie Owens, was convicted of armed robbery and the murder of a store cashier named Irene Graves in 1997, when he was 19 years old. He has long argued that he did not shoot her, and the state’s key witness alleged in an affidavit last month that he made false remarks at the instruction of prosecutors during the trial.

“[Allah] has maintained his innocence throughout, and the evidence shows that his sentence is based on trial court errors and the prosecution withholding evidence,” Gerald “Bo” King, Allah’s public defender, said in an interview. He has filed multiple unsuccessful motions in recent weeks to save his client’s life. “It is extraordinary and tragic that his execution is moving forward.”

Allah, who recently grappled with choosing his execution method , would be one of the youngest people at the time of the crime to be executed by South Carolina in decades. Like many sentenced to death in the US, Allah endured a lifetime of trauma before his conviction.

Allah faced physical and psychological abuse from his caretakers at a young age, growing up in a family that struggled with substance abuse, where he was forced as a child to support his parents’ drug dealing, according to a neuropsychologist who interviewed and evaluated him.

His father, stepfather and grandmother all experienced periods of incarceration. He grew up witnessing domestic violence against his mother, had severe learning disabilities, regularly missed school, and was imprisoned in juvenile facilities where he was exposed to physical and sexual abuse, according to his attorneys. Experts have diagnosed him with “organic brain damage”, exacerbated by his tumultuous childhood, saying his brain was “analogous to a car with weak brakes”, with diminished decision-making and cognitive functioning.

“He grew up with a degree of poverty and violence that many of us can’t begin to imagine,” King said.

Prosecutors accused of ‘secret deal’

On 1 November 1997, prosecutors say Allah and three other men robbed a convenience store and in the process killed Graves , an employee and mother of three. She was shot in the head. Footage showed two masked, unidentifiable assailants holding guns at the store.

Allah and his friend and co-defendant, Steven Golden, were due to face a joint murder trial, but as the trial was beginning, Golden pleaded guilty to murder, armed robbery and criminal conspiracy – and agreed to testify against Allah.

There was no forensic evidence tying Allah to the shooting, his lawyers said in a recent filing, so Golden’s direct witness account was crucial. Golden testified that Allah killed Graves.

Golden’s official plea agreement said he was not guaranteed a lighter sentence in exchange for testifying, and that he was still facing the death penalty. But Golden, who remains incarcerated, signed an affidavit last month stating “this wasn’t true”.

“We had a verbal agreement that I would not get the death penalty or life without parole,” he said, arguing that this was “the only reason I agreed to the deal”. He said the prosecutor had instructed him to falsely testify to jurors that there was no agreement about his sentence. He was ultimately sentenced to 30 years while Allah, convicted in February 1999, was sentenced to death.

One document from 1999 supports Golden’s new affidavit: Golden’s lawyer at the time drafted a plea agreement laying out that Golden would be spared the death penalty. But that record was not introduced as evidence in the trial; Allah’s lawyers have accused prosecutors of failing to disclose this “secret deal”.

“His conviction and sentence were premised on a witness whose testimony was obtained through an agreement that wasn’t disclosed, and that should give everyone pause,” said King.

The nature of Allah’s guilty verdict is also atypical; he was convicted of murder without a jury explicitly ruling that he pulled the trigger. At trial, prosecutors instructed jurors that they could convict Allah simply if they believed he was present during the deadly robbery. Allah’s lawyers have pointed to the state’s closing arguments, in which a prosecutor said it was “not important” who the shooter was:

“If you find that both of these individuals are present and you find that Ms Graves was killed by one of them, even though you don’t find which one at this point … they are both guilty,” the prosecutor told the jury. “The one issue you are here to decide is was [Allah] present … when Ms Graves was killed.”

Related: South Carolina supreme court rules state’s death penalty is legal

Since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976, only 22 people have been executed for murders they did not directly commit, where they were considered accomplices or were present during the incident, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit that analyzes capital punishment.

“The supreme court has said the death penalty should be reserved for the worst people who commit the very worst crimes,” said Robin Maher, the group’s executive director. “Most Americans would agree that someone who does not intend to kill anyone, and does not kill anyone, does not meet that criteria.”

Allah’s team has argued that a death sentence should not be applied to a defendant who “did not kill or intend to kill”.

The courts twice reversed Allah’s death sentence, but it was reinstated and South Carolina’s supreme court unanimously denied two requests from lawyers to stop the execution last week, saying he had not demonstrated “exceptional circumstances” warranting the intervention and rejecting his legal arguments.

The justices argued Golden’s new affidavit did not prove there was a secret deal, but rather reflected Golden’s conversations with his own lawyer at the time. The attorney general’s office has denied that there was a secret deal. The justices also argued evidence showed Allah was the shooter, including testimony from others who alleged he admitted it. Even if he wasn’t the shooter, he was still a “major participant in the murder” and that execution was justified, the justices said. Prosecutors have also said Allah confessed to killing a man in jail in 1999, which was raised during his original sentencing, but those charges were dropped .

South Carolina’s ‘rush’ to execute

South Carolina is pursuing a spate of executions at a time when use of the death penalty, and its support among Americans, is declining . Since 2023, seven states have conducted executions: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah. Twenty-nine states have abolished capital punishment or instituted a moratorium on executions, while half of Americans say they believe the death penalty is unfairly applied .

“We’re not seeing among the general public any clamor for an increased use of the death penalty,” said Maher. “This is coming from a handful of elected officials in a handful of states that are rushing towards executions.”

South Carolina had an unofficial pause on executions for more than a decade because its supply of lethal injection drugs dried up and pharmaceutical corporations refused to publicly supply more, fearing public pressure. But last year the state passed a law to shield the identity of suppliers and has since restocked the drugs.

The state now instructs death row prisoners with execution dates to choose the method they will be killed: lethal injection, electrocution or a firing squad .

Related: Attorney picks execution method after South Carolina death row man refuses

Allah, however, objected to signing a form authorizing one of those options, a step he said amounted to participating in suicide, a violation of his Muslim faith. One of his lawyers, granted power of attorney, chose lethal injection on his behalf.

If his lawyer hadn’t chosen, Allah would have been subject by default to the electric chair, which he strongly opposed, said King: “He had deep religious objections … The depth of his conviction is evident in the fact that he absolutely did not want to be electrocuted and still felt he could not participate in the election of another method.”

In his final days, Allah has been weighing what his final meal will be and which incarcerated neighbors will get his property, King said. Prison officials also interrupted a legal visit to inspect his veins and select an injection site.

The state supreme court recently announced the next five executions to be scheduled, saying they would be spaced at least 35 days apart. Civil rights organizers and faith leaders have called on Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s Republican governor, to grant Allah clemency, his final recourse. The governor’s office did not respond to inquiries, and the attorney general’s office declined to comment.

The Rev Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted the state’s dark history of killing young Black defendants; before 1972, when the supreme court temporarily overturned the death penalty, 44 teenagers were executed, and all but two were Black. “We can disrupt that racist legacy,” she said.

“Governor McMaster has touted South Carolina as an extremely pro-life state. We’re asking him to be consistent with his pro-life ethics and to value all life,” she continued. “Khalil deserves to live.”