SC executes inmate for 1997 murder | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

COLUMBIA, SC – Inmate Freddie Owens was executed in South Carolina on Friday, resuming executions in the state after an inadvertent 13-year hiatus because prison officials were unable to obtain the drugs needed for lethal injections.

Owens was convicted in 1997 of killing a Greenville store clerk during a robbery. During the trial, Owens killed an inmate in a county jail. His confession to the attack was read to two different juries and a judge, all of whom sentenced him to death.

When the curtain opened to the death chamber, Owens, 46, was strapped to a gurney, his arms outstretched. Owens made no final statement, but after he was administered the drug, he said goodbye to his lawyer and she said goodbye to him.

He seemed conscious for about a minute, then he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. His breathing became shallower and his face continued to twitch for four or five minutes before the movements stopped.

A little over 10 minutes later, at 6:55 p.m., a doctor came in and pronounced him dead.

Owens' latest appeal has been denied multiple times, including by a federal court on Friday morning. Owens also asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution. The governor and the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections immediately filed a response saying the Supreme Court should deny Owens' request. The opinion said his case was not unusual.

The Supreme Court rejected the request shortly after the execution was scheduled to begin.

His last chance to avoid death was when South Carolina's Republican governor, Henry McMaster, commuted his sentence to life in prison. McMaster also denied Owens' request, saying he had “carefully considered and thoroughly considered” Owens' request for clemency.

McMaster had previously said he would follow historical tradition and announce his decision minutes before the lethal injection begins, when prison officials call him and the attorney general to ensure there is no reason to delay the execution. The former prosecutor had promised to review Owens' clemency request but said he tends to trust prosecutors and juries.

Owens may be the first of several inmates to die in the state's death chamber, Broad River Correctional Institution. Five other inmates have not been appealed, and the South Carolina Supreme Court has cleared the possibility of one execution being carried out every five weeks.

South Carolina first attempted to use the firing squad to resume executions after supplies of lethal injection drugs ran out and no company was willing to sell them publicly. However, in order to reopen the death chamber, the state had to pass a secrecy law that kept the drug supplier and much of the execution protocol secret.

To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug method to a new protocol that uses only the sedative pentobarbital. The new procedure is similar to how the federal government kills inmates, state prison officials say.

Under South Carolina law, prisoners sentenced to death have the choice between lethal injection, the new firing squad, or the electric chair, invented in 1912. Owens left the decision about his manner of death to his lawyer. He said he felt that if he made that decision, he would be complicit in his own death, and his religious beliefs condemn suicide.

While in prison, Owens changed his name to “Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah,” but he is still referred to as Owens in court and prison records.

Owens was convicted of the 1999 murder of Irene Graves. Prosecutors said he shot the single mother of three, who worked three jobs, in the head when she said she couldn't open the store's safe.

But another murder looms over his case. After his conviction, but before he was sentenced for Graves' murder, Owens fatally attacked a fellow inmate, Christopher Lee.

Owens gave a detailed confession about stabbing Lee, burning his eyes, choking him and stomping on him. According to an investigator's written report, he concluded by saying he did it “because I had been wrongly convicted of murder.”

This confession was read to every jury and judge who subsequently sentenced Owens to death. Two of Owens' death sentences were overturned on appeal, and he was returned to death row.

Owens was charged with Lee's murder but never brought to trial. Prosecutors dropped the charges, with the right to refile them in 2019, around the time Owens ran out of regular appeal options.

In his final appeal, Owens' lawyers argued that prosecutors never presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger in Graves's killing. The main evidence against him was a co-defendant who pleaded guilty and testified that Owens was the killer.

Owens' lawyers presented an affidavit from Steven Golden two days before the execution in which he said Owens was not at the store, contradicting his testimony at trial. Prosecutors said other friends of Owens and his ex-girlfriend testified that he had bragged about killing the clerk.

“South Carolina is on the brink of executing a man for a crime he did not commit. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Owens,” attorney Gerald “Bo” King said in a statement.

Owens' lawyers also said he was only 19 years old at the time of the murder and suffered brain damage from physical and sexual abuse in juvenile detention.

The last execution in South Carolina took place in May 2011. It took a decade of execution controversy in the legislature—first allowing execution by firing squad as a death penalty and later passing a death penalty protection law—before the death penalty was reinstated.

South Carolina has executed 43 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state averaged three executions per year. Only nine states have recorded more executions.

Executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Rev. Hillary Taylor, speaks at a news conference before delivering petitions to prevent the execution of Freddie Owens, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Rev. Hillary Taylor protests the planned execution of Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. Owens is scheduled to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Executive director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Rev. Hillary Taylor, speaks at a news conference before delivering petitions to prevent the execution of Freddie Owens, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024, at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Jesse Motte, right, protests the planned execution of Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, South Carolina. Owens is scheduled to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Rev. Hillary Taylor protests the planned execution of Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, S.C. Owens is scheduled to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Demonstrators protest the planned execution of 46-year-old Freddie Eugene Owens on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Columbia, South Carolina. Owens is scheduled to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)