South Carolina has scheduled the execution of inmate Freddie Eugene Owens for September 20, marking the state’s first execution in over 13 years. Once one of the busiest states for capital punishment, South Carolina faced challenges in obtaining lethal injection drugs due to pharmaceutical companies’ reluctance to be publicly associated with executions. Recently, the state legislature passed a law allowing officials to keep lethal injection drug suppliers confidential, paving the way for executions to resume.
Owens, convicted of killing store clerk Irene Graves in 1997, will likely have the option to choose between lethal injection, electrocution, or a newly introduced firing squad. This option has not been used since a Utah inmate’s execution in 2010. Owens’ defense attorneys have expressed concerns over the lack of transparency regarding the execution drugs’ quality, arguing that this secrecy raises ethical and legal issues.
The controversy around Owens’ execution follows a decade of legislative debate, during which South Carolina added the firing squad and passed a shield law to protect the identities of drug suppliers. The state Supreme Court upheld these measures, ruling them legal and not cruel or unusual punishment.
Owens has been sentenced to death three times due to appeals processes, including a conviction for killing his cellmate while awaiting his initial sentencing. Despite these convictions, Owens can still seek clemency from Governor Henry McMaster, though no South Carolina governor has granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.
With at least three other inmates nearing the end of their appeals, the state’s death chamber could see more activity in the near future, signaling a significant shift in South Carolina’s approach to capital punishment after years of inactivity. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, the state of South Carolina has executed 43 individuals. South Carolina was once one of the more active states in carrying out executions, especially in the early 2000s, when it averaged around three executions per year.
The federal government’s stance on executions has varied over time, reflecting changes in administration policies and judicial rulings. As of recent years, the U.S. federal government reinstated federal executions in 2019 after a 17-year hiatus, resulting in 13 executions between July 2020 and January 2021. However, the current administration under President Biden, who opposes the death penalty, has put a moratorium on federal executions, effectively pausing them while a review of capital punishment policies and procedures is conducted. The stance is aimed at addressing concerns about the fairness and application of the death penalty.