COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court docket on Thursday refused to cease the execution of Freddie Owens who is ready to die by deadly injection subsequent week within the state’s first execution in 13 years.
The justices unanimously tossed out two requests from protection attorneys who mentioned a court docket wanted to listen to new details about what they known as a secret deal that saved a co-defendant off dying row or from serving life in jail and a couple of juror who accurately surmised Owens was sporting a stun belt at his 1999 trial.
That proof, plus an argument that Owens’ dying sentence was too harsh as a result of a jury by no means conclusively decided he pulled the set off on the shot that killed a comfort retailer clerk, did not attain the “distinctive circumstances” wanted to permit Owens one other attraction, the justices wrote of their order.
The bar is often excessive to grant new trials after dying row inmates burn up all their appeals. Owens’ attorneys mentioned previous attorneys scrutinized his case fastidiously, however this solely got here up in interviews because the potential of his dying neared.
The choice retains on observe the planned execution of Owens on Sept. 20 on the Broad River Correctional Establishment in Columbia.
South Carolina’s last execution was in Might 2011. The state didn’t got down to pause executions, however its provide of deadly injection medication expired and firms refused to promote the state extra if the transaction was made public.
It took a decade of wrangling within the Legislature — first including the firing squad as a technique and later passing a protect legislation — to get capital punishment restarted.
Owens, 46, was sentenced to dying for killing comfort retailer clerk Irene Graves in Greenville in 1997. Co-defendant Steven Golden testified Owens shot Graves within the head as a result of she couldn’t get the protected open.
There was surveillance video within the retailer, but it surely didn’t present the taking pictures clearly. Prosecutors by no means discovered the weapon used and didn’t current any scientific proof linking Owens to the killing at his trial, though after Owens’ dying sentence was overturned, prosecutors confirmed the person who killed the clerk was sporting a ski masks whereas the opposite man inside for the theft had a stocking masks. Additionally they linked the ski masks to Owens.
Golden was sentenced to twenty-eight years in jail after pleading responsible to a lesser cost of voluntary manslaughter, in response to court docket data.
Golden testified at Owens’ trial that there was no deal to cut back his sentence. In a sworn assertion signed Aug. 22, Golden mentioned he lower a facet cope with prosecutors, and Owens’ attorneys mentioned that may have modified the minds of jurors who believed his testimony.
The state Supreme Court docket mentioned in its order that wasn’t compelling sufficient to cease Owens’ execution, and whereas they believed the proof that Owens was the clerk’s killer, even when he did not kill her it, wasn’t sufficient to cease his dying.
“He was a significant participant within the homicide and armed theft who confirmed a reckless disregard for human life by knowingly participating in a prison exercise that carries a grave threat of dying,” the justices wrote.
Owens has at the very least another likelihood at stopping his dying. Gov. Henry McMaster alone has the ability to cut back Owens’ sentence to life in jail.
The governor has mentioned he’ll comply with longtime custom and never announce his determination till jail officers make a name from the dying chamber minutes earlier than the execution. McMaster informed reporters he hasn’t determined what to do in Owens’ case however as a former prosecutor, he respects jury verdicts and court docket choices.
“When the rule of legislation has been adopted, there actually is just one reply,” McMaster mentioned.
Earlier Thursday, opponents of the dying penalty gathered exterior McMaster’s workplace to induce him to develop into the primary South Carolina governor for the reason that dying penalty was restarted within the U.S. in 1976 to grant clemency.
“There may be at all times hope,” mentioned the Rev. Hillary Taylor, Govt Director of South Carolinians for Options to the Dying Penalty. “No one is past redemption. You might be greater than the worst factor you’ve gotten accomplished.”
Taylor and others identified Owens is Black in a state the place a disproportionate variety of executed inmates have been Black and was 19 years outdated when he killed the clerk.
“Nobody ought to take a life. Not even the state of South Carolina. Solely God can try this,” mentioned the Rev. David Kennedy of the Laurens County chapter of the NAACP.
