Inmate Freddie Owens was put to death on Friday in South Carolina, after the state abruptly resumed executions after a 13-year hiatus because prison officials could not obtain the drugs needed for lethal injection.
Owens was convicted in 1997 of killing a Greenville convenience store clerk during a robbery.
During the trial Owens murdered an inmate in the county jail.
His confession regarding that attack was read before two separate juries and a judge, who sentenced him to death.
Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m.
When the death chamber curtain opened, Owens was tied with rope and his arms were outstretched to his sides.
He said something to his lawyer, at which the lawyer also smiled.
He was conscious for about a minute, then his eyes closed and he took several deep breaths.
Her breathing became shallow and her face twitched for four or five minutes, then the movements stopped.
Approximately 13 minutes later a medical professional arrived and pronounced him dead.
Owens' final appeals have been repeatedly rejected, including a ruling by a federal court Friday morning.
Owens also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution.
South Carolina's governor and corrections director promptly filed responses, arguing that the high court should dismiss Owens' petition.
The filing states that there is nothing extraordinary about his case.
The High Court rejected the request shortly after the scheduled date of execution.
His last chance to escape death was to have his sentence commuted to life imprisonment by South Carolina’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster.
McMaster also denied Owens' request, saying he had “carefully reviewed and given thoughtful consideration” to Owens' clemency application.
McMaster had previously said he would follow historical tradition and announce his decision minutes before the lethal injection is carried out, after prison officials call him and the state attorney general to ensure there was no reason to delay the execution.
The former prosecutor promised to review Owens' clemency petition, but said he trusts prosecutors and the jury.
First hanging in 13 years
Owens may be the first of many inmates to die in the state death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution.
Five other inmates are out on appeal, and the South Carolina Supreme Court has cleared the way for executions to take place every five weeks.
South Carolina first attempted to reintroduce capital punishment using firing squads because it had run out of supplies of lethal injection drugs and no company was willing to sell them to the public.
But the state had to pass a shield law to reopen the death chamber, which kept the drug supplier and much of the execution protocol secret.
The state adopted a new method for executions using only the sedative drug pentobarbital instead of the three-drug method.
According to state prison officials, this new process is similar to the federal government's process for killing inmates.
South Carolina's law allows convicted inmates to choose between lethal injection, the newer firing squad or the electric chair, designed in 1912.
Owens allowed his attorney to choose how he would die, saying he felt he would be responsible for his own death if he made that choice and that his religious beliefs condemn suicide.
Owens changed his name to Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah while in prison, but is still referred to as Owens in court and prison records.
Crime
Owens was convicted of the murder of Irene Graves in 1999.
Prosecutors said he shot the single mother of three who worked three jobs in the head after she said he couldn’t open the store’s safe.
But another killing has come to light in his case: After being convicted but before being sentenced in Graves' murder, Owens fatally attacked a fellow prison inmate, Christopher Lee.
According to an investigator's written account, Owens confessed in detail how he stabbed Lee, burned out her eyes, strangled her and crushed her, finally saying he did it because “I was wrongly convicted of murder.”
This confession was read to every jury and the judge, who sentenced Owens to death.
Two separate death sentences given to Owens were thrown out on appeal, and he was ultimately sentenced to death again.
Owens was charged with murder in Lee's death but was never tried.
Prosecutors dropped the charges and sought to reinstate them in 2019, around the same time Owens’ regular appeals were exhausted.
Final Appeal
In his final appeal, Owens' attorneys said prosecutors never presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger when Graves was killed and that the main evidence against him was a co-defendant who confessed to the crime and testified that Owens was the killer.
Owens' attorneys submitted an affidavit from Steven Golden two days before the execution that stated Owens was not at the store, which contradicted his trial testimony.
Prosecutors said Owens and other friends of his ex-girlfriend testified that she talked about killing the clerk.
“South Carolina is on the verge of executing a man for a crime he did not commit. We will continue to advocate for Mr. Owens,” attorney Gerald “Bo” King said in a statement.
Owens' attorneys also said he was just 19 when the killing occurred and had suffered brain damage from physical and sexual violence while in juvenile prison.
South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty plans a vigil outside the prison about 90 minutes before Owens' death.
South Carolina reintroduces the death penalty
of South Carolina Final execution It was in May 2011.
The Legislature debated for a decade about reintroducing the death penalty — first adding firing squad as a method and later passing a shield law.
Since the death penalty was reintroduced in the U.S. in 1976, 43 inmates have been executed in South Carolina.
In the early 2000s, there were an average of three executions per year.
Only nine states have executed more inmates.
But since the moratorium on inadvertent executions, the number of people put to death in South Carolina has dropped.
The state had 63 convicted inmates at the start of 2011. The number was 32 when the count began Friday.
Around 20 prisoners have been spared the death penalty following successful appeals and given varying prison terms.
Others died of natural causes.
