The South Carolina Supreme Court has denied a request to halt the execution of death row inmate Freddie Owens, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection next week . This will be the state's first execution in 13 years.
The court unanimously rejected two appeals from defense lawyers who argued that new information about a secret deal that spared a co-defendant from death row or life imprisonment and a juror's correct assumption that Owens was wearing a stun belt during his 1999 trial needed to be heard. The justices stated that this evidence, along with the argument that Owens' death sentence was too severe as it was never conclusively proven that he fired the fatal shot at a convenience store clerk , did not meet the "exceptional circumstances" required for another appeal.
Despite exhausting all their appeals, the bar remains high for granting new trials to death row inmates. Owens' lawyers claimed that previous attorneys had thoroughly examined his case, but this only emerged in interviews as his execution date approached.
The decision ensures that Owens' execution, scheduled for September 20 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia, will proceed as planned. The last execution in South Carolina took place in May 2011.
The state did not intentionally halt executions, but its supply of lethal injection drugs expired and companies refused to sell more if the transaction was made public. After a decade of legislative debates, which included the addition of the firing squad as an execution method and the passing of a shield law, capital punishment has been reinstated.
Owens, 46, was handed the death sentence for the murder of convenience store clerk Irene Graves in Greenville in 1997. His co-defendant, Steven Golden, testified that Owens shot Graves in the head because she couldn't open the safe.
Although there was surveillance footage from the store, it didn't clearly capture the shooting. The prosecution never found the weapon used and didn't present any scientific evidence linking Owens to the killing at his trial.
However, prosecutors showed that the man who killed the clerk wore a ski mask while the other man involved in the robbery wore a stocking mask. They also linked the ski mask to Owens.
Golden received a 28-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, according to court records. Golden testified at Owens' trial that there was no deal to reduce his sentence.
In a sworn statement signed on August 22, Golden claimed he had made a side deal with prosecutors. Owens' attorneys argued that this could have influenced the jurors who believed his testimony.
The state Supreme Court stated in its order that this wasn't compelling enough to halt Owens' execution. They believed the evidence pointed to Owens as the killer of the clerk, but even if he didn't kill her, it wasn't enough to stop his death.
The justices penned, "He was a major participant in the murder and armed robbery who showed a reckless disregard for human life by knowingly engaging in a criminal activity that carries a grave risk of death". Owens still has one more opportunity to halt his execution.
Only Gov. Henry McMaster has the authority to commute Owens' sentence to life imprisonment. McMaster has stated he will adhere to longstanding tradition and withhold his decision until prison officials make a call from the death chamber just moments before the execution.
The governor told journalists he hasn't made up his mind on Owens' case yet, but as a former prosecutor, he respects jury verdicts and court rulings. "When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer," McMaster expressed.
Earlier on Thursday, death penalty opponents gathered outside McMaster's office, urging him to be the first South Carolina governor since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the US in 1976 to grant clemency. "There is always hope," Rev. Hillary Taylor, Executive Director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, voiced.
"Nobody is beyond redemption. You are more than the worst thing you have done." Taylor and others highlighted that Owens is Black in a state where a disproportionate number of executed inmates have been Black and was just 19 years old when he committed the murder.
"No one should take a life. Not even the state of South Carolina. Only God can do that," declared Rev. David Kennedy from the Laurens County chapter of the NAACP.
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