South Carolina to conduct its first execution in 13 years

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCBD) – A man is set to be executed in South Carolina for the first time in more than a decade.

Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, will die by lethal injection around 6 p.m. Friday. The only thing that can stop his execution is a call from Governor Henry McMaster. That decision could come within minutes of the scheduled execution time.

Owens, 19 at the time, was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk in Greenville back on Halloween night in 1997. He murdered a cellmate a short time later.

This would mark the first time an inmate has been executed in the state since 2011. South Carolina had to pause executions because companies that made the drugs used for lethal injections refused to sell them to states until a Shield Law was passed last year that protects makers of these drugs.

While attorneys for Owens have filed motions to stop the execution, a co-defendant recently came forward claiming he lied during testimony and that Owens was innocent.

South Carolina’s highest court refused to stop the execution, however, saying other witnesses said Owens did pull the trigger, killing the store clerk.

Protests are expected near Broad River Correctional Institute where the execution is scheduled. Other protests are being planned around the state.

Freddie Owens

Owens was convicted of killing Irene Graves in 1999 after committing a string of armed robberies at convenience stores on Halloween night years before. But hanging over his case is another killing: After his conviction, but before he was sentenced in Graves’ killing, Owens fatally attacked a fellow jail inmate, Christopher Lee.

Owens gave a detailed confession about how he stabbed Lee, burned his eyes, choked and stomped him, ending by saying he did it “because I was wrongly convicted of murder,” according to the written account of an investigator.

That confession was read to each jury and judge who went on to sentence Owens to death. Owens had two different death sentences overturned on appeal only to end up back on death row.

Owens was charged with murder in Lee’s death but was never tried. Prosecutors dropped the charges with the right to restore them in 2019 around the time Owens ran out of regular appeals.

In his final appeal, Owens’ lawyers said prosecutors never presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger when Graves was killed and the chief evidence against him was a co-defendant who pleaded guilty and testified that Owens was the killer.

Owens’ attorneys provided a sworn statement two days before the execution from Steven Golden saying Owens was not in the store, contradicting his trial testimony. Prosecutors said other friends of Owens and his former girlfriend testified that he bragged 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’ lawyers also said he was just 19 when the killing happened and that he had suffered brain damage from physical and sexual violence while in a juvenile prison.

How many executions have been carried out in South Carolina?

According to state law, any person who pleads guilty to or is convicted of murder can face the death penalty if the state can prove there was an aggravating circumstance.

Before 1912, individual counties in South Carolina were responsible for executions and all were done by hanging. Following that date, the state has carried out 284 executions, using both lethal injection and the electric chair.

In the past century, the majority of inmates executed by the state were men of color, according to the South Carolina Department of Corrections. Of the 284 executions, 75 were white and 209 were black. Only two women have been executed by the State of South Carolina since 1912.

In the modern era (post-1985), 43 inmates have been executed in South Carolina.

History of capital punishment in South Carolina

Executions within the state have been carried out since the early 18th century when pirates were hanged in public spaces.

But, the true history of state executions in the state begins in the latter part of the 20th century. Although death penalty statutes still existed in many states, executions were stopped in 1962 due to a national moratorium.

In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled in Furman v Georgia, that capital punishment, in some cases, constituted cruel and unusual punishment and reduced all penalties to life imprisonment. This decision effectively declared most death penalty statutes unconstitutional, including that of South Carolina.

In response, 35 states including South Carolina, modified their death penalty statutes to impose a mandatory death penalty judgment under certain circumstances. While several people in the state were sentenced under this statute, no prisoner was executed under the judgment, according to the Department of Corrections.

In 1976, another challenge would come before the Supreme Court. In Gregg v Georgia, the Court found that punishment by death did not violate cruel and unusual punishment or equal treatment under the law. So while the death penalty was ruled not unconstitutional, the Court said that individual cases should be tried on their facts, and mandatory judgments were in violation of the Constitution.

In light of that judgment, the State Attorney General declared South Carolina’s existing statute unconstitutional, and a new law was codified in 1977. The death penalty was reimposed in South Carolina in 1985 with the execution of Joseph Shaw.

It was not until 1995 that a new method of execution emerged: lethal injection. Up until that point, each person sentenced to death in the state was executed by the electric chair. Effective June 8, 1995, lethal injection became the primary method of state execution.

The state’s last batch of a lethal injection drug was not replenished after expiring in 2013, and companies that make the drug were worried about being identified publicly and therefore would not supply the drug.

Facing difficulting in obtaining lethal injection drugs, the state Senate voted in favor of a 2019 proposal to bring back the electric chair and add firing squad as a method of execution.

In 2023, state lawmakers passed the Shield Statute which protects companies that make lethal injection drugs. Soon after, Gov. Henry McMaster informed the state Supreme Court that the state was prepared to carry out lethal injections once again.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.