Faced with a choice of execution method, a South Carolina inmate left the decision to his lawyer, who reluctantly opted for lethal injection rather than the electric chair or firing squad.
Freddie Owens, 46, said in court documents that he could not choose the method of his execution because doing so would mean taking an active role in his own death and his Muslim faith makes suicide a sin. Associated Press.
Owens' execution is scheduled for Sept. 20 for the murder of store clerk Eileen Graves during a series of robberies in Greenville in 1997. It will be the first execution in South Carolina in more than 13 years, after a pause on executions was forced in recent years by a lack of access to lethal injection drugs.
Owens' attorney, Emily Pavola, sent documents to prison officials on Friday, telling them to prepare to kill Owens by lethal injection. She also said in a statement that it was unclear whether prison officials had disclosed enough information about the use of the drug to be able to kill Owens without causing excruciating pain and suffering. The drug rises to the level of cruel and unusual punishment.
South Carolina death row inmate seeks stay of execution, claims co-defendant lied about no plea deal
Freddie Owens, 46, said he could not choose the method of his execution because taking an active role in his own death goes against his Islamic beliefs. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via The Associated Press)
“I have known Mr. Owens for 15 years,” she wrote. “Given the circumstances and the information currently available, I have made the best decision I could make on his behalf, and I sincerely hope that the assurances made by the South Carolina Department of Corrections are true.”
If Pavola had not made the decision, state law meant Owens would have been killed in the electric chair, but Owens said that was not how he wanted to die.
South Carolina, once one of the states with the highest number of executions, has not carried out an execution since 2011 due to problems obtaining lethal injection drugs in recent years and concerns from pharmaceutical companies that they would have to disclose their drug sales to state authorities.
But the state Legislature passed a protective bill last year allowing authorities to keep the supplier of lethal injection drugs secret, and the state Supreme Court has ruled that the electric chair and firing squad can also be used as execution methods.
South Carolina has used a three-drug cocktail in the past, but will now follow the same federal procedure as the state and use only one drug, the sedative pentobarbital, for lethal injections.
Owens is one of six inmates on death row who have exhausted their appeals to avoid execution. There are currently 32 inmates on death row in South Carolina.
Since the execution date was set two weeks ago, his defense team has filed several legal motions seeking a delay to the execution, but so far no delay has been granted.
Graves had asked for a stay of execution so his lawyers could argue that his co-defendant lied about taking a plea deal to testify against Owens in exchange for avoiding the death penalty or life in prison. Co-defendant Steven Golden testified that Owens shot Graves in the head 27 years ago because he couldn't open a safe at a Greenville store.
“My plea agreement stated that the death penalty or life in prison was still a possibility and that there was no specific guarantee as to what my sentence would be,” Golden wrote in a deposition last month. “That is not true. There was a verbal agreement that I would not receive the death penalty or life in prison.”
South Carolina's first execution in more than 13 years is scheduled for next month
If his lawyers had not made a decision, state law meant Owens would have been killed in the electric chair, but he said that was not how he wanted to die. (South Carolina Department of Corrections, via The Associated Press, File)
Golden was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Plead guilty He was charged with a lesser offense of intentional homicide, according to court records.
The store had surveillance cameras that did not clearly capture the shooting, and prosecutors were never able to find the weapon used in the shooting or present any forensic evidence linking Owens to the murder.
Prosecutors said the co-defendants' testimony was corroborated by confessions made by Owens to his mother, his girlfriend and investigators.
State prosecutors said allegations of false plea agreements and concerns that jurors may have been prejudiced against Owens after seeing an electronic stun device he wore during his trial were addressed in multiple appeals cases and in two additional sentencing hearings that recommended the death penalty after other judges overturned the original punishment.
“Owens had ample opportunity to litigate his conviction and sentence claims, and no further litigation will be filed,” the South Carolina Attorney General's Office said in a court filing.
Owens' lawyers are asking that the death sentence be at least temporarily vacated because he was only 19 at the time of the crime and scans have shown his brain was not fully developed. They also said the jury was never asked to decide whether Owens killed the store clerk alone, and argued that the sentence is too harsh because fewer than 1 percent of murder convictions during armed robbery result in the death penalty.
He also tried to delay the execution, arguing that the state had not released enough information about the drugs used in the lethal injection.
In upholding the new SHIELD law, the state Supreme Court said prison officials must submit an affidavit that the pentobarbital used in the state's new lethal injection law is stable, pure and potent enough to kill an inmate.
Corrections Commissioner Brian Sterling said a state law enforcement lab technician tested two vials of the sedative and assured them they were potent, but he gave no further details.
Owens is scheduled to be executed Sept. 20 for the murder of store clerk Eileen Graves during a series of robberies in Greenville in 1997. (AP Photo/Sue Oglocki, File)
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Owens' lawyers cited photos of execution drug syringes stored in Georgia in 2015 that had crystallized due to cold storage, and asked for more information, including a full lab report, expiration dates for the drugs believed to have been mixed and how they were stored.
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled Thursday that prison officials had released enough information.
The only way Owens could avoid execution at this time is for the state's governor to grant him a pardon and commute his death sentence to life in prison, but no governor has done so in any of the 43 executions carried out in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said he would follow longstanding practice and not announce the decision to execute a man until prison officials call from the death chamber shortly before the execution takes place.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
