Current:Home > MarketsSouth Carolina death row inmate asks governor for clemency -AssetLink
South Carolina death row inmate asks governor for clemency
View
Date:2025-04-16 14:42:12
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A South Carolina inmate scheduled to be executed Friday is asking Gov. Henry McMaster to spare his life, something no governor in the state has done since the death penalty was restarted nearly 50 years ago.
Freddie Eugene Owens, 46, is set to be the first person to be executed in South Carolina in 13 years. His lawyer chose lethal injection over the firing squad or electric chair after Owens turned the decision over to her.
McMaster has said he will stick to the historic practice of announcing his decision on the phone with the prison minutes before Owens’ lethal injection is set to start.
Owens is being sent to the death chamber for the killing of Greenville convenience store clerk Irene Graves in 1997. While awaiting sentencing after being found guilty in her death, Owens killed a fellow jail inmate in a brutal attack, authorities said, Prosecutors read Owens’ confession before the two juries and judge who decided he should die. He was never tried in the inmate’s death.
Owens’ clemency request before Friday’s execution states that prosecutors never presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger when Graves was killed because she couldn’t open the store’s safe, his lawyers said in a statement.
A co-defendant who was in the store pleaded guilty and testified that Owens was the killer, but Owens’ attorneys said the other man had a secret deal with prosecutors to avoid a death sentence or life in prison.
They also said Owens was just 19 when the killing happened and that he had suffered brain damage from physical and sexual violence while in a juvenile prison.
“Because Khalil’s youth and traumas prevented him from functioning as an adult, it is unjust to punish him as one,” Owens’ lawyers said. Owens changed his name to Khalil Divine Black Sun Allah while in prison, but court records continue to refer to him as Freddie Owens.
Owens’ lawyers have not publicly released the full clemency petition.
The arguments are similar to ones the defense attorneys made last week when they asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to postpone Owens’ execution. The justices rejected them, saying either they had been argued in the past or didn’t rise to the level of stopping the execution after decades of appeals.
Owens has been sentenced to death on three separate occasions after parts of his case were overturned and his capital sentence thrown out.
Lawyers for the state Attorney General’s Office said prosecutors showed during Owens’ final sentencing hearing that the man who pulled the trigger was wearing a ski mask while the other man had a stocking mask. They then linked the ski mask to Owens.
But hanging over Owens’ case is the other killing. Before he was sentenced in Graves’ killing, Owens 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.
Owens’ confession was read by prosecutors each time a jury or judge was determining whether he lived or died. He was charged with murder in Lee’s death but never taken to court. Prosecutors dropped his charges a few years ago when he ran out of appeals in Graves’s case with the right to restore them if they wanted.
In South Carolina, the governor has the lone ability to grant clemency and reduce a death sentence to life in prison. However, no governor has done that in the state’s 43 executions since the death penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976.
McMaster has repeatedly said that he hasn’t decided what to do in Owens’ case and that he will review any information given to him thoroughly. He says that as a former prosecutor he respects jury verdicts and court decisions,
“When the rule of law has been followed, there really is only one answer,” McMaster said.
At least five other death row inmates in South Carolina are out of appeals and the state Supreme Court has ruled they can be executed in five-week intervals.
veryGood! (73)
Related
- Realtor group picks top 10 housing hot spots for 2025: Did your city make the list?
- Wheel comes off pickup truck, bounces over Indianapolis interstate median, kills 2nd driver
- Fukushima nuclear plant’s operator says the first round of wastewater release is complete
- DraftKings receives backlash for 'Never Forget' 9/11 parlay on New York teams
- Judge says Mexican ex-official tried to bribe inmates in a bid for new US drug trial
- South Dakota panel denies application for CO2 pipeline; Summit to refile for permit
- MTV Video Music Awards return Tuesday, with an all-female artist of the year category
- Scarfing down your food? Here's how to slow down and eat more mindfully
- British golfer Charley Hull blames injury, not lack of cigarettes, for poor Olympic start
- Grimes Speaks Out About Baby No. 3 With Elon Musk
Ranking
- 2024 Olympics: Gymnast Ana Barbosu Taking Social Media Break After Scoring Controversy
- Elon Musk says he denied Ukraine satellite request to avoid complicity in major act of war vs. Russia
- Cubs prospect called up for MLB debut decades after his mom starred in 'Little Big League'
- Country singer-songwriter Charlie Robison dies in Texas at age 59 from cardiac arrest
- Connie Chiume, Black Panther Actress, Dead at 72: Lupita Nyong'o and More Pay Tribute
- Thousands dead in Moroccan earthquake, 22 years since 9/11 attacks: 5 Things podcast
- Demi Lovato revealed as mystery mouse character on 'The Masked Singer': Watch
- Grimes Speaks Out About Baby No. 3 With Elon Musk
Recommendation
Costco membership growth 'robust,' even amid fee increase: What to know about earnings release
Twinkies are sold! J.M. Smucker scoops up Hostess Brands for $5.6 billion
When does 'Barbie' come out? Here's how to watch 2023's biggest movie at home
Hurricane Lee generates big swells along northern Caribbean while it churns through open waters
Justice Department, Louisville reach deal after probe prompted by Breonna Taylor killing
Biden, Modi and G20 allies unveil rail and shipping project linking India to Middle East and Europe
Israel accuses Iran of building airport in southern Lebanon to launch attacks against Israelis
'Selling the OC': Tyler Stanaland, Alex Hall and dating while getting divorced