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USA - South Carolina. Marion Bowman, 44, Black, was executed
January 31, 2025: January 31, 2025 - South Carolina. Marion Bowman, 44, Black, was executed at the Broad River Correctional Facility in Columbia.
It was be the first execution in the US of the new year.
On May 23, 2002 (see Hands off Cain), Bowman, was sentenced to death for the murder of 21-year-old Kandee Martin on Feb. 16, 2001. While Bowman admits to dealing drugs to Martin, he says he didn't kill her and that prosecutors convicted the wrong man.
Bowman has maintained his innocence and in his final days became outspoken about the brutal conditions on death row.
Bowman and his attorneys had been fighting for the courts to intervene and revisit his conviction, citing ineffective trial counsel, claims of withheld evidence and concerns about the drawn-out method of killing.
But on Thursday, the US supreme court rejected his final appeal, as his family pleaded for his life to be spared.
Bowman is the third Black man to face execution in South Carolina in recent months, after the state was able to restock its supply of pentobarbital, a sedative. The cases have sparked protests over wrongful convictions, racial bias in capital punishment and the suffering caused by pentobarbital.
As the lethal injection process began, Bowman briefly looked at his lawyer in the room, then closed his eyes before his breaths became heavy, according to the Associated Press, which witnessed the execution. Roughly20 minutes later, a medical professional listened to his chest and placed a hand on his neck, and he was pronounced dead at 6.27 pm local time.
Bowman, imprisoned for more than half his life, was convicted of the 2001 killing of Kandee Martin, a 21-year-old childhood friend. He has said he did not kill her and that he refused to accept a plea deal because of his innocence. His attorneys said the evidence used against him was not reliable; the primary witnesses implicating him were two men also charged in the crime who received reduced sentences, and a third man who had pending charges in a separate case, which were subsequently dropped.
His lawyers also argued that the state withheld evidence casting doubt on the witnesses, including a memo outlining a claim that one of the witnesses confessed to the shooting.
Bowman’s legal team also argued in a recent petition that the lawyer who represented him at trial was “infected by his own racism”, writing that the lawyer pressured him to plead guilty because he was Black and his victim was white.
Attorneys for the state responded that Bowman was rehashing arguments already litigated, and the South Carolina supreme court called his appeal “meritless”. The US supreme court rejected his petition relating to his trial counsel’s “biases”. His attorneys also unsuccessfully challenged the state’s use of pentobarbital, noting that an anesthesiologist who reviewed the autopsy of the last man executed by South Carolina said it appeared he “consciously experienced feelings of drowning” and that it took 23 minutes to kill him.
In his prepared last words, Bowman said: “I did not kill Kandee Martin. I’m innocent of the crimes I’m here to die for … I know that Kandee’s family is in pain. They are justifiably angry. If my death brings them some relief and ability to focus on the good times and funny stories, then I guess it will have served a purpose. I hope they find peace.”
He continued: “Living behind these walls has taught me a lot about loss and grief. It is never easy, but I have learned to find comfort in sharing good memories and funny stories. My suffering will soon be at an end, but I know it is the beginning for others. Please keep your head up, remember I love you, and please share your memories of me.”
In an unusual move, Bowman opted not to request clemency from the state’s governor, with his lawyer, Lindsey Vann, saying on Thursday that Bowman could not “in good conscience ask for a supposed mercy that would require him to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit”. The decision was a “powerful refusal to legitimize an unjust process that has already stolen so much of his life”, the lawyer said.
No South Carolina governor has granted clemency to a capital defendant in the modern death penalty era. South Carolina’s governor has typically waited minutes before the execution to declare his decision, a tradition advocates have described as cruel.
Bowman becomes the 1st person executed this year in South Carolina, the 46th since the state resumed executions in 1985, the first of 2025 in the US, and the n° 1608 since US resumed executions in 1977
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/31/south-carolina-execution-marion-bowman
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/31/marion-bowman-executed-south-carolina-kandee-martin/78098175007/ (Source: The Guardian, 31/01/2025)
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