South Carolina justices refuse to stop state’s first execution in 13 years

COLUMBIA, SC — The South Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday declined to order the execution of Freddie Owens who will die by lethal injection next week, the first execution in the state in 13 years.

The justices unanimously rejected two requests from defense attorneys who said a court should hear new information about what they called a secret deal who saved a co-defendant from being sentenced to death or life in prison, and a juror who correctly suspected that Owens was carrying a stun gun during his 1999 trial.

That evidence, plus an argument that the death penalty was too harsh for Owens because a jury never conclusively determined that he pulled the trigger on the shot that killed a store clerk, did not meet the “exceptional circumstances” needed to grant Owens another appeal, the justices wrote in their order.

The bar is usually high for allowing new trials after death row inmates have exhausted all their appeals. Owens’ attorneys said previous defense attorneys had carefully investigated his case, but that was only brought up in interviews as the possibility of his death approached.

The decision keeps the course steady planned execution of Owens on September 20 at the Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

South Carolina last execution was in May 2011. The state had no intention to pause executions, But the stockpile of lethal injection drugs was no longer available and companies refused to sell the state more if the deal was made public.

It took a decade of legislature wrangling—first by adding the firing squad as a method and later by passing a shield law—to reinstate the death penalty.

Owens, 46, was sentenced to death for the 1997 murder of Irene Graves, a Greenville convenience store clerk. Co-defendant Steven Golden testified that Owens shot Graves in the head after she couldn’t open the safe.

There was surveillance video inside the store, but it did not clearly show the shooting. Prosecutors never recovered the weapon used and presented no scientific evidence linking Owens to the murder at his trial, although prosecutors, after Owens’ death sentence was overturned, showed that the man who killed the clerk was wearing a ski mask, while the other man inside for the robbery was wearing a stocking mask. They also linked the ski mask to Owens.

According to court documents, Golden was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Golden testified at Owens’ trial that there was no deal to reduce his sentence. In an affidavit signed on Aug. 22, Golden said he made a side deal with prosecutors, and Owens’ attorneys said it could have swayed jurors who believed his testimony.

The state Supreme Court said in its order that was not enough to prevent Owens’ execution. They believed that the evidence that Owens was the servant’s killer, even if he did not kill her, was not enough to prevent his death.

“He was a significant participant in the murder and armed robbery, who showed reckless disregard for human life by knowingly and willfully engaging in a criminal activity that carried a significant risk of death,” the judges wrote.

Owens has at least one chance to prevent his death. Governor Henry McMaster is the only one with the power to reduce Owens’ sentence to life in prison.

The governor has said he will follow longstanding tradition and not announce his decision until prison officials make a phone call from death row, minutes before the execution. McMaster told reporters he has not yet decided what to do in Owens’ case, but as a former prosecutor he respects the jury’s verdicts and the court’s decisions.

“If the rule of law is followed, there is really only one answer,” McMaster said.

Earlier Thursday, death penalty opponents gathered outside McMaster’s office to urge him to become the first South Carolina governor to grant pardons since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976.

“There is always hope,” said Rev. Hillary Taylor, executive director of South Carolina for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “No one is beyond redemption. You are more than the worst thing you’ve done.”

Taylor and others pointed out that Owens is black, while a disproportionate number of executed prisoners are black. Furthermore, he was 19 years old when he killed the clerk.

“No one should take a life. Not even the state of South Carolina. Only God can do that,” said Reverend David Kennedy of the Laurens County chapter of the NAACP.