Death penalty opponents urge McMaster to grant clemency before execution next week

COLUMBIA, SC (WCSC) – A week from Friday, South Carolina is scheduled to host its first execution in over a decade.

But some are now urging the state's top leadership to stop the execution of convicted murderer Freddie Owens.

The Governor of South Carolina has the power to grant clemency and reduce death sentences to life imprisonment without parole.

A group of South Carolina residents gathered at the State House on Thursday to call on Governor Henry McMaster to become the first South Carolina governor in modern history to do so.

“The death penalty is not imposed on the worst of the worst. Instead, it is imposed on people who are multiply marginalized in our society, people who are least able to defend themselves against the death penalty in court,” said the Rev. Hillary Taylor of the group South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “A person is more likely to be sentenced to death if they are black, poor and disabled. Freddie 'Khalil' Owens fits all three categories.”

Clergy, civil rights activists and opponents of the death penalty said they believed the state should not execute people in their name.

They claim that the death penalty does not deter murder and does not contribute to the security of society.

They are now calling on McMaster and conservative anti-abortion activists to also abolish the death penalty if they support the values ​​of the pro-life movement.

The governor had previously described the more than ten-year hiatus in executions in South Carolina as a delay in justice.

Shortly before Owens' scheduled execution on September 20, McMaster must declare whether he will pardon Owens.

“I'm reading, I'm trying to get all the facts available, and then when the time comes to announce the decision, which will be on that day, then I will do it,” he told reporters on Thursday.

Later that day, the South Carolina Supreme Court rejected two requests by Owens' attorneys to block his execution by lethal injection.

Death penalty opponents said they would hold vigils across South Carolina on the evening of Owens' scheduled execution, including near Columbia Prison, where the state's execution chamber is located.

Owens was found guilty of killing a store clerk during a robbery in Greenville County in 1997.

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