21 September 2024 :
September 20, 2024 - South Carolina. Freddie Owens, 46, Black, was executed
South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause because prison officials couldn’t get the drugs needed for lethal injections.
Owens was convicted of shooting Irene Graves, a cashier at a Speedway convenience store, the night of Halloween in 1997. Owens was 19 when he and an 18-year-old accomplice shot and killed Graves during a robbery in November 1997.
While the accomplice pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years, Owens was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1999. The death sentence was overturned twice before re-sentencing trials restored the death penalty for Owens, which was subsequently upheld by the higher courts. Owens was also charged with murdering Christopher Bryan Lee, a fellow prisoner, in 1999. Owens gave a detailed confession about how he stabbed Lee, ending by saying he did it “because I was wrongly convicted of murder”. Owens was charged with murder in Lee’s death but was never tried.
Owens changed his name to Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah while in prison, but court and prison records continue to refer to him as Owens.
Owens made no final statement. His last meal was two cheeseburgers, french fries, well-done ribeye steak, six chicken wings, two strawberry sodas and a slice of apple pie.
When the curtain to the death chamber opened, Owens was strapped to a gurney, his arms stretched to his sides. After the drug was administered, he said “bye” to his lawyer and she said “bye” to him.
He smiled slightly and his facial expression did not change much before he appeared to lose consciousness after about a minute. Then his eyes closed and he took several deep breaths. His breathing got shallower and his face twitched for another four or five minutes before the movements stopped.
A doctor came in and declared him dead a little over 10 minutes later at 6:55 p.m.
On September 18, a lawyer for Owens, filed a sworn statement in court detailing how his co-defendant, Steven Golden, admitted to lying about the crime to save himself.
Prosecutors emphasized that multiple witnesses testified Owens admitted to pulling the trigger. Last week, the state Supreme Court denied a request to halt Owens' execution after Golden, in a sworn statement, claimed he had a secret agreement with prosecutors that was never disclosed to the jury.
Additionally, Golden filed another sworn statement detailing that Owens was not at the convenience store at the time that Irene Graves was killed. Golden said he falsely blamed Owens because he was high on cocaine and felt pressured by police, who told him they already knew he and Owens were together and that Owens was cooperating. He also admitted he was afraid of the actual killer.
Owens’ last-ditch appeals were repeatedly denied, including by a federal court Friday morning. Owens also petitioned for a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court. South Carolina’s governor and corrections director swiftly filed a reply, stating the high court should reject Owens’ petition. The filing said nothing is exceptional about his case.
The high court denied the request shortly after the scheduled start time of the execution.
His last chance to avoid death was for Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to commute his sentence to life in prison. McMaster denied Owens’ request as well, stating that he had “carefully reviewed and thoughtfully considered” Owens’ application for clemency.
On Thursday, the group South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty delivered a petition with over 10,000 signatures to Governor Henry McMaster's office, urging him to commute Owens' sentence to life imprisonment. They also held a vigil outside the prison about 90 minutes before Owens was scheduled to die.
South Carolina’s last execution was in May 2011. It took a decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get capital punishment restarted.
South Carolina has put 43 people to death since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000s, it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Only nine states have put more people to death.
Since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina’s death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned people in early 2011. It now has 31 after Owens’ death Friday. About 20 people have been taken off death row and received different prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of natural causes.
Owen becomes the 1st inmate executed this year in South Carolina, the 44th since the state resumed executions in 1985, the 14th inmate executed this year in the US, and the n. 1596 since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://www.newsweek.com/south-carolina-freddie-owens-1997-murder-case-death-peanlty-1956560
