Prisoner in South Carolina must decide for himself how he wants to die: Lawyer opts for lethal injection

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A death row inmate who had to decide how he wanted to be executed ended weeks of uncertainty by leaving the decision to his lawyer, who reluctantly told South Carolina prison officials Friday to prepare for a lethal injection rather than the electric chair or firing squad.

In court documents, Freddie Owens stated that by deciding on the method of execution, he was actively involved in his own death and that because of his Muslim faith, he believed suicide was a sin.

Attorney Emily Paavola sent the form to prison authorities and issued a statement saying she was still unsure whether prison authorities had released enough information about the drug to guarantee that it would kill him without causing unbearable pain or suffering that could constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

“I have known Mr. Owens for 15 years. Under the circumstances and with the information currently available to me, I have made the best decision I could for him. I sincerely hope that the assurances provided by the South Carolina Department of Corrections will hold true,” she wrote.

If his lawyer had not made a decision, Owens would have been sent to the electric chair under state law. Owens had said he did not want to die that way.

Owens' death anniversary is now set for September 20, after South Carolina reinstated a new lethal injection execution procedure following a 13-year hiatus.

In South Carolina, executions have been postponed since 2011 due to difficulties in obtaining the drug for lethal injection. The death chamber was reopened after lawmakers voted last year to keep the supplier of the sedative pentobarbital secret and the state Supreme Court ruled that the electric chair and firing squad were also legal methods of execution.

In the past, the state used three drugs for executions, but then switched to a single dose of pentobarbital – similar to the federal government's method of execution – to make it easier to obtain the drug.

Owens and five other inmates have exhausted all appeals, and judges have set a schedule for possible executions to take place every fifth Friday well into 2025.

Lawyers for 46-year-old Owens have filed several legal motions since the execution date was set two weeks ago, but so far there have been no delays.

The state Supreme Court has yet to rule on a request by Owens to delay his death so his lawyers can argue that his co-defendant lied and said he made a deal to avoid the death penalty or life in prison in exchange for his testimony that Owens pulled the trigger to kill clerk Irene Graves after she tried to open the safe in a store they robbed in 1997.

It was not clear from the store video who killed Graves, and no scientific evidence was presented at trial. Prosecutors said the co-defendant's testimony was bolstered by Owens' confession to the murder to his mother, girlfriend and investigators.

Prosecutors said that question, and whether a juror might have been biased against Owens after seeing a bulge under Owens' clothing and correctly assuming it was a stun belt, have been addressed in a half-dozen appeals and two other sentencing hearings that also ended in a death sentence after other judges overturned his original sentence.

“Owens has had ample opportunity to litigate his claims regarding his conviction and sentence. He is entitled to nothing more,” the South Carolina Attorney General's Office wrote in a court document.

Owens' lawyers are also asking that his death sentence be overturned, at least temporarily, because he was 19 when the clerk was killed and scans of his brain show it was not fully developed. They also said a jury was never asked whether Owens alone killed Graves and that his sentence was too harsh because less than 1% of murder convictions during armed robberies result in death sentences.

Owens also tried to delay his execution on the grounds that the state had not released enough information about the drug.

In upholding the new protection law, the state Supreme Court said prison officials would have to provide a sworn statement that the pentobarbital to be used in the state's new lethal injection procedure was stable, pure and – based on similar methods in other jurisdictions – potent enough to kill.

Bryan Stirling, director of corrections, said technicians at the State Law Enforcement Division's lab tested two vials of the tranquilizer and assured him the drugs met criteria. He did not provide further details, in accordance with Shield Law guidelines.

Owens' lawyers wanted more, such as the lab's full report, the expiration date of the likely compounded drug and how it would be stored. They included in their court filings a photo of a syringe containing an execution drug from 2015 in Georgia that crystallized because it was stored too cold.

The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled late Thursday that prison officials had released enough information, echoing his lawyers who said any additional information could be a “piece of the puzzle” that would allow death penalty opponents to identify the drug's dealer and pressure him not to sell it to the prison system again.

No matter what happens in court, Owens has one last chance to save his life. In South Carolina, only the governor has the ability to grant clemency and convert a death sentence into life imprisonment.

However, no governor has done so in the 43 executions in this state since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976.

Governor Henry McMaster said he would follow longstanding tradition and not announce his decision until prison officials make a call from the death chamber minutes before the execution.