South Carolina inmate Freddie Eugene Owens is scheduled for execution this Friday, September 20. The 46-year-old was convicted of murder in 1997 and could become the first person executed in the state since 2011.
In a last-ditch effort to avoid the death penalty, Owens petitioned South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster for clemency. According to the Associated Press, the governor traditionally announces his decision just before the execution. No such request has been granted by his predecessors in nearly 50 years.
Owens was sentenced to death for the murder of Irene Graves, a convenience store clerk in Greenville. Although he was also charged with the murder of his cellmate, he was never tried for that second crime. In his request, Owens points to the lack of scientific evidence that he shot Irene Graves.
The South Carolina Supreme Court has upheld that the state’s methods of execution (lethal injection, firing squad and electrocution) do not constitute “cruel or unusual punishment,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Owens’ attorney therefore argued for execution by lethal injection.
The death penalty was reinstated in South Carolina in 1976. In 2021, the state decided to allow firing squads, becoming the fourth U.S. state to allow the method, joining Mississippi, Oklahoma and Utah.
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