South Carolina has executed its first demise row inmate in 13 years, administering a deadly injection to Freddie Owens.
Owens, 46, was discovered responsible by a jury of killing store employee Irene Graves throughout an armed theft in Greenville in 1997.
He was executed regardless of his co-defendant signing a sworn assertion this week claiming Owens was not current on the time of the theft and killing.
The South Carolina Supreme Court docket refused to halt Owens’ execution, saying the claims had been inconsistent with testimony made at his trial.
Owens was executed on the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday night.
He was pronounced useless at 18:55 native time (22:55 GMT) after being injected with a drug referred to as pentobarbital. He made no ultimate assertion.
His demise adopted a pause in executions within the state as a result of jail officers had been unable to acquire the drug required for deadly injections.
Owens was sentenced to demise in 1999, two years after killing Graves, after being convicted of homicide, armed theft and legal conspiracy.
The day after he was discovered responsible, he killed his cellmate in jail, studies CNN affiliate WHNS.
In line with reporting on his trial by South Carolina newspaper The State, Owens was 19 when he and Steve Golden, then 18, held Graves at gunpoint whereas making an attempt to rob the comfort retailer the place she labored.
Owens shot and killed Graves after she did not open a secure under the counter, based on testimony supplied by Golden at Owens’s trial.
On the time of her demise, Graves was a 41-year-old single mom of three.
Legal professionals for Owens tried to halt his execution a number of occasions, together with twice in September. However the courtroom denied every request.
Within the newest try, legal professionals pointed to an affidavit signed by Golden on Wednesday, which claimed Owens was harmless.
The courtroom denied the request to halt the execution by saying that the brand new affidavit was “squarely inconsistent with Golden’s testimony at Owens’s 1999 trial” and the assertion he gave to police proper after their arrest.
Different witnesses testified that Owens had advised them he shot Graves, prosecutors mentioned.
Advocates towards the demise penalty and Owens’s mom additionally appealed to the state for clemency, which was denied by Governor Henry McMaster.
Hours earlier than his execution, Owens’s mom mentioned in an announcement it was a “grave injustice that has been perpetrated towards my son”.
“Freddie has maintained his innocence since day one,” his mom, Dora Mason, mentioned, based on native information outlet the Greenville Information.
Inmates in South Carolina are allowed to decide on whether or not they wish to die by deadly injection, electrical chair or firing squad.
Owens deferred the choice to his lawyer, who selected the deadly injection choice for him, based on the Greenville Information.
Journalists who witnessed the execution mentioned members of Graves’ household had been additionally current.
