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South Carolina Executes First Inmate in Over 13 Years - Reports

© AP Photo / Sue OgrockiOklahoma has approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation for the administration of the death penalty in case the US Supreme Court finds lethal injections - plagued by recent botched executions - to be unconstitutional.
Oklahoma has approved the use of nitrogen gas asphyxiation for the administration of the death penalty in case the US Supreme Court finds lethal injections - plagued by recent botched executions - to be unconstitutional.  - Sputnik International, 1920, 21.09.2024
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - South Carolina inmate Freddie Owens was put to death by lethal injection tn what was the state's first execution in over 13 years, local CBS news reported.
Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m EST, the report said.
Owens was convicted of killing a convenience store clerk during a robbery in 1997. Prosecutors at the trial said Owens shot the clerk, whose name was Irene Graves, in the head for opening a safe too slowly.
During his murder trial Owens confessed to brutally killing Christopher Lee, an inmate at a local county jail. According to the report, Owens said in a written statement that he killed Lee because he was "wrongly convicted of murder."
Attorneys alleged that Owens, who was 19 at the time of the killing, suffered from brain damage as a result of abuse that occurred while Owens was at a juvenile correction facility, the report added. Owens' co-defendant Steven Golden, who fingered him as the gunman wrote in a sworn statement just hours before Owens' execution that he had been pressured by police into testifying against Owens, but prosecutors argued that Golden was not the only evidence linking Owens to the crime.
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All last-minute appeals by Owens' attorneys, including one that traveled as far as the Supreme Court of the United States, were denied, according to the report.
South Carolina's governor, Henry McMaster, filed a response to the stay of execution request, urging SCOTUS to reject the petition and alleging that nothing about Owen's case was exceptional.
The report added that Owens' death may be the first of several inmates to die in the state's death chamber, as five other inmates are out of appeals and the South Carolina Supreme Court has said it would allow an execution every 5 weeks.
South Carolina hadn't performed an execution since 2011, when the state's supply of lethal injection drugs expired and pharmacies refused to furnish more out of fear of being identified by the public. However, a law passed last year allowing the state to keep secret its lethal cocktail and the drug's suppliers.
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