Justices promise at least 5 weeks between backlogged executions in South Carolina

South Carolina’s Supreme Court promised Friday it would wait at least five weeks between putting inmates to death as the state restarts its death chamber with up to six executions looming.

Still unanswered by the justices is another legal question before Freddie Owens is brought to the death chamber on Sept. 20 — can Owens have his lawyer choose whether he dies by lethal injection, electrocution or by the new firing squad?

Friday's one-page order rejected a request from lawyers for the condemned inmates to set three months between executions to relieve pressure on prison staff that could lead to mistakes and give lawyers time to dedicate solely to each prisoner's case.

But it was a compromise of sorts. Under state law and a timeline first issued when the justices ruled executions could restart last month, the Supreme Court could issue execution orders every week on Friday if it wishes. The state said prison officials told them four weeks would be fine.

The justices also let the inmates know the order of the remaining five executions for condemned prisoners out of appeals.

One of the busiest states for capital punishment, South Carolina hasn't performed an execution since 2011. Its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell more. But the addition of a secrecy law last year allowed the state to obtain a different drug.

Owens, 46, has until Sept. 6 to decide the method the state uses to kill him. He signed his power of attorney over to his lawyer, Emily Paavola, to make that decision for him.

“Mr. Owens has a long-standing, deeply held religious conviction that physically signing the election form is taking an active role in bringing about his own death and is thus akin to suicide. Mr. Owens’ Muslim faith teaches that suicide is a sin, and it is forbidden,” Paavola wrote in court papers.

The state Supreme Court has agreed to a request from the prison system to see if that is allowed under South Carolina law, suggesting in court papers that the justices question Owens to make sure he understands the execution method choice is final and can’t be changed even if he were to revoke the power of attorney.

Owens' lawyer said she does not think it is necessary for him to answer questions about an order drafted at his request, worked on by his lawyers and signed voluntarily, but he will answer questions if asked.

If Owens does not make a choice, he would be sent to the electric chair by law and he does not want to die that way, Paavola wrote.

Owens was sentenced to death for killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves in Greenville in 1997. A co-defendant testified Owens shot Graves in the head because she couldn’t get the safe open.

After being convicted of murder his initial trial in 1999, but before a jury determined his sentence, authorities said Owens killed his cellmate at the Greenville County jail and his confession was read to the jury deciding if he got life in prison or the death penalty.

Owens' death sentence was overturned twice by appeals courts and sent back to the circuit court, where he was sentenced to die again.

Friday's ruling from the state Supreme Court also set this order for the next five executions of inmates out of appeals.

— Richard Moore , 59, convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in Spartanburg in 1999.

— Marion Bowman, 44, convicted of killing an Orangeburg woman and setting her body on fire because she owed him money in 2001.

— Brad Sigmon, 66, convicted of beating to death his estranged girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat in Greenville County in 2001.

— Mikal Mahdi, 41, convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer at his home in Calhoun County and setting his body on fire in 2004.

— Steven Bixby, 57, convicted of killing two police officers in Abbeville responding after he threatened workers who planned to use some of the state's right-of-way on his parents' land to widen a highway in 2003.

South Carolina currently has 32 inmates on its death row.