Lawyer decides method of execution after South Carolina death row inmate refuses | South Carolina

The lawyer for the first death row inmate in South Carolina since 2011 who is likely to be executed has decided in favor of death by lethal injection. The inmate had refused to choose between three different methods of killing because it “would be tantamount to suicide.”

Freddie Owens is now to be executed with a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital. The prisoner had until Friday to choose between three methods of execution: lethal injection, electric chair and shooting.

Owens had joined other death row inmates in rejecting both the electric chair and the firing squad as cruel and unusual methods of punishment banned under the U.S. Constitution. He had also refused to sign the form that would decide the three methods, arguing that to do so would be to participate in his own killing – which would amount to suicide, he said, and that his Muslim faith forbade him from doing so.

Since the defendant did not make a decision himself, Owens' defense attorney Emily Paavola, to whom he had given power of attorney, stepped in. She knew that South Carolina would electrocute her client as standard if she did not meet Friday's deadline. In this predicament, she opted for lethal injection instead.

In a statement, Paavola said: “I have known Mr. Owens for 15 years. Under the circumstances and given the information currently available to me, I have made the best decision I could on his behalf.”

Owens was sentenced to death for murdering gas station clerk Irene Graves during a series of robberies in 1999. He is the first of five inmates who have exhausted all appeals and now face execution after 13 years in which the state's death chamber went unused.

Much of this delay is due to the difficulty South Carolina has in obtaining drugs for lethal injection because of a worldwide boycott by pharmaceutical companies that do not agree to their medical products being used to kill people. The state has enacted strict secrecy laws that prevent the public from knowing where it gets its lethal drugs.

Owens' defense team now hopes to delay the impending execution with a final legal remedy. The lawyers accuse the state of not providing sufficient information about the quality of the pentobarbital that will be used. If the drug is faulty or ineffective, this could have serious consequences for the prisoner.

His lawyers are also asking for a stay of execution to allow more time to review new evidence in his case. In a motion filed in the state Supreme Court, they argue that a plea deal offered to Owens' co-defendant has come to light and calls his conviction into question.

Steven Golden, Owens' friend who was involved in the robbery, was the only eyewitness to the murder, and there is no other forensic evidence. The complaint states that Golden was offered a deal that would see him avoid the death penalty or life without parole if he testified against his friend – a crucial detail that was withheld from Owens' lawyers at trial.