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Thread: Freddie Eugene Owens - South Carolina Death Row

  1. #21
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    South Carolina court weighs pausing new death penalty law

    By Associated Press

    A South Carolina judge heard arguments Monday on whether to temporarily halt a new law effectively forcing death row prisoners to choose to die by either electric chair or firing squad.

    Attorneys for Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, two men set to die later this month, said the law is unconstitutional because their clients were sentenced under an older iteration of the statute that made lethal injection the default execution method. If South Carolina carries out the executions as scheduled, both men would likely die in the state’s 109-year-old electric chair because prison officials have not yet put together a firing squad.

    The lawsuit was filed shortly after Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law a bill aimed at restarting executions after an involuntary 10-year pause, when the state ran out of lethal injection drugs. The new law compels the condemned to choose to be electrocuted or shot if lethal injection drugs are not available. Prior to the law, prisoners could choose between lethal injection or electrocution.

    The new law is first time a U.S. jurisdiction has attempted to revert to an earlier method of execution, argued Hannah Freedman of Justice 360, the organization representing Owens and Sigmon.

    “We’re here today to address a crisis,” Freedman said Monday. “They’re attempting to make South Carolina the first American jurisdiction to revert to a more brutal, less humane, more onerous method of execution.”

    The South Carolina Supreme Court set Sigmon’s execution for June 18 after prison officials indicated the state’s electric chair was ready for use. Owens is slated to die a week later, on June 25.

    Attorneys for Gov. Henry McMaster and the South Carolina Department of Corrections argued the inmates also do not have a right to choose between methods. The agency is interpreting the law to mean that after receiving execution notices from state Supreme Court, officials will move to carry out the executions with the methods available at the time, attorneys said.

    Lawyers for the state pointed to the potential " cruel irony " of lethal injection as a growing body of evidence suggests some of the drugs administered could inflict torturous pain while a paralyzing agent conceals suffering.

    “South Carolina is not going back to a method of execution that is intended to cause pain,” said Daniel Plyler, a lawyer representing the corrections agency.

    State Circuit Court Judge Jocelyn Newman said she would make a decision “within the next few days” on whether to temporarily block the law as the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.

    https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/so...LC2RBZWVIADSA/

  2. #22
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    SC judge denies effort to stop new South Carolina execution law

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina judge has denied a motion to stop the state's updated execution law from going into effect, meaning two inmates' executions are still scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.

    Circuit Court Judge Jocelyn Newman issued her ruling late Tuesday afternoon.

    She'd been asked by two death row inmates---Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens--to issue an injunction stopping a new election law from taking effect. The law, passed this year, forces inmates up for execution to choose between either electrocution or firing squad. Sigmon is scheduled to be executed on June 18, while Owens is set to die on June 25. Attorneys for the two men set to die say the law is unconstitutional because their clients were sentenced under the old law that made lethal injection the default execution method. They also said the other methods are less humane. The state of South Carolina argues they are working to carry out executions under the methods available at the time.

    But in her ruling, Newman said the inmates have "little likelihood of success on the merits of their claim" and did not stop the law.

    Currently, the corrections department has not set up procedures for a firing squad, which means the inmates' only option is the electric chair.

    This is one of several legal efforts to stop the executions by the two men. They've also got a date in federal court Wednesday.

    The death penalty has been legal in South Carolina during the whole time they've been on death row but no inmate has been executed since 2011. That was because of an inability by the state to get the drugs necessary to execute inmates by lethal injection.

    But the South Carolina General Assembly passed a new law earlier this year that aimed to bypass that problem by making inmates choose between the options of death by the electric chair or firing squad. Gov. Henry McMaster signed the measure into law, saying it's necessary to give families justice. Death penalty opponents say both methods of killing are inhumane.

    The corrections department's website says 284 executions have been carried out by the state since 1912.

    https://www.wltx.com/article/news/lo...9-2ed16a110e48
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  3. #23
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
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    Judge denies SC inmates request to stall upcoming executions

    A federal judge denied two South Carolina death row inmates’ request for an injunction, which would delay their upcoming executions.

    In his order, Judge Robert Bryan Harwell said the inmates failed to prove that their claims that the electric chair violates the Eighth Amendment — which protects against cruel and unusual punishment — are unlikely to succeed in court, and therefore, he could not give them an injunction.

    Harwell’s decision comes just days before the first of the two inmates, Brad Sigmon, is scheduled to be executed. Sigmon, who was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat, was scheduled to be executed in the electric chair June 18 The other inmate, Freddie Owens, is scheduled to be executed in the electric chair the following week on June 25. Owens was convicted of murdering a convenience store clerk and confessed to another murder of a fellow detainee at the Greenville County Detention Center.

    In federal court Wednesday in Florence, attorneys for Owens and Sigmon argued that the electric chair, the only method of execution available to the inmates, is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which protects from cruel and unusual punishment. While the Supreme Court has said in years past that the electric chair is a permissible method of execution, lawyers argued that they have not done so recently and the issue is “ripe to revisit at this point.”

    The attorneys argued there are more humane methods available to the inmates, despite the S.C. Department of Corrections’ insistence that it is unable to obtain the drugs necessary to carry out an execution by lethal injection. The lawyers pointed to other states that have been able to purchase the drugs in recent years. Attorneys for the corrections department and S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster maintained in court that, despite the department’s best efforts, officials were unable to obtain either the three drug cocktail South Carolina traditionally uses for the lethal injection or the single drug option, pentobarbitol, used by the federal government and some other states.

    They added that the inmates’ lawyers were unlikely to get the Supreme Court to rule against itself when it comes to the legality of the electric chair.

    South Carolina’s employment of the death penalty came under the spotlight as lawmakers pushed to change the state’s existing execution law this year.

    Under the states old laws, the lethal injection was the default method of execution, and unless an inmate specifically chose to die in the electric chair, the state could not force them to do so. After drug companies decided to crack down on how their products were being used, South Carolina officials struggled to purchase the necessary drugs for a lethal injection, they said, meaning inmates could not be put to death. As a result, three inmates received stays of execution because the state did not have the means to put them to death.

    In May, state lawmakers changed the execution laws so South Carolina could resume putting inmates to death. Under the new law, the electric chair is the default method of execution, but if the state has the ability to carry out an execution by firing squad or lethal injection, the death row inmate can choose one of those options.

    Currently, the state Department of Corrections can only offer death by electrocution. The state is still developing protocols for carrying out a death by firing squad, an option only recently added to state law by legislators.

    Sigmon and Owens’ earlier efforts to delay their execution have failed. The pair asked a circuit court judge in Richland County to block the new law from taking affect, arguing that it’s unconstitutional.
    Late Tuesday afternoon, circuit court judge Jocelyn Newman did not grant an injunction to the inmates, saying their claims had “little likelihood of success.”

    The inmates appealed their case to the state Supreme Court.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...252022023.html
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  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aaron View Post
    In his order, Judge Robert Bryan Harwell said the inmates failed to prove that their claims that the electric chair violates the Eighth Amendment — which protects against cruel and unusual punishment — are unlikely to succeed in court, and therefore, he could not give them an injunction.
    Proofreading was drilled into me in every English class I’ve ever had. How do professional media outlets get away without it?
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  5. #25
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    The headline is missing an apostrophe after "inmates" as well.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  6. #26
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    Emergency appeal filed to halt executions of 2 Greenville men

    Lawyers of Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, two Greenville men set to be executed under South Carolina's new law mandating electrocution as the default mode, filed an emergency motion in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday.

    Sigmon, set to be executed this week Friday and Owens, on June 25, will "suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction," read the court filings.

    What the state will suffer from the delay in execution pales in comparison to the "torturous death" the two men will suffer, the court filings said.

    Just last week on June 11, a federal judge denied the attempt Sigmon and Owens made to halt their executions.

    U.S. District Judge R. Bryan Harwell ordered a temporary restraining order be denied based on South Carolina's good faith effort to use lethal injection drugs if available and that if not, electrocution was still a constitutional means of execution, the order states.

    On June 9, attorneys representing the Greenville County men argued before a federal judge to block the upcoming executions, saying that an execution by an electric chair violated their Eighth Amendment.

    The state had counter-argued that there was no evidence that lethal injections were not as painful as the electrocution.

    The current appeal, as per the court filings, contests Harwell's decision. While the Sigmon and Owens have presented medical evidence of what the electric chair can do to the human body, the state has not presented a comparative argument, they argued.

    "At a bare minimum, the public has an interest in knowing the answer to the question the Movants have raised—whether a state may carry out executions in the electric chair, against the will of the condemned," the court filing said.

    Sigmon, 63, was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents, David and Gladys Larke. According to court documents, he went into their home on April 27, 2001, and beat them with a baseball bat. Owens was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves while he was part of a robbery spree on Halloween 1997, according to court documents and newspaper archives.

    Meanwhile, Richard Moore of Spartanburg is awaiting word from the S.C. Supreme Court on a request to vacate his death sentence.

    Moore, 56, received the death penalty in 2001 after his conviction for killing a convenience store clerk in 1999.

    He was scheduled to be executed Dec. 4, 2020, but the S.C. Supreme Court delayed the execution.

    The S.C. Department of Corrections did not have the drugs for lethal injection.

    Since the stay, his case was sent to the state Supreme Court for review to determine whether his death sentence was disproportionate to the crime.

    https://www.greenvilleonline.com/sto...ed/7676164002/
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  7. #27
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    Court halts executions of Brad Sigmon, Freddie Owens; says firing squad needs to be option

    By NIKIE MAYO
    The Greenville News

    The South Carolina Supreme Court has again halted the executions of Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, two Greenville County men convicted of separate murders who were scheduled to die just days from now.

    The similar rulings came late Wednesday, June 16, just two days before Sigmon was to be executed, and nine days before Owens' scheduled June 25 execution.

    The state Supreme Court directed late Wednesday that the men's executions must not be rescheduled until South Carolina has a firing squad in place as an option for execution.

    Before the unanimous ruling granted them reprieves, Sigmon and Owens were scheduled to be the first people in this state in a decade to be executed and the first since South Carolina has spent years trying to obtain drugs used to carry out lethal injections.

    Wednesday's ruling is the latest in a series of legal maneuvers in the weeks since South Carolina amended its capital punishment law in May.

    A law backed by a majority of state legislators and signed by Gov. Henry McMaster on May 14 makes electrocution South Carolina's default means for carrying out the death penalty. The remodeled capital-punishment law also includes an option to use a firing squad, but the state Department of Corrections could not have it in place in time for scheduled executions.

    Chrysti Shain, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said in an emailed statement Wednesday after the rulings were issued that the agency "is moving ahead with creating policies and procedures for a firing squad."

    "We are looking to other states for guidance through this process," Shain said. "We will notify the court when a firing squad becomes an option for executions."

    In its Wednesday rulings, the state Supreme Court wrote that, according to Department of Corrections Director Bryan Stirling, "lethal injection is unavailable due to circumstances outside of the control of" his agency, and firing squad policies and procedures are still under development.

    "Under these circumstances, in which electrocution is the only method of execution available, and due to the statutory right of inmates to elect the manner of their execution, we vacate the execution notice," the court said in its ruling in the Sigmon case.

    Similar language was used in the court's ruling vacating Owens' execution notice.

    Sigmon, 63, was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend's parents, David and Gladys Larke. According to court documents, he went into their home on April 27, 2001, and beat them with a baseball bat.

    He took a gun from the house and waited for his ex-girlfriend to return. When she did, Sigmon kidnapped her at gunpoint and forced her into his car, according to court documents filed this week. She was able to jump out of the car and Owens shot her, but she survived.

    Owens was convicted of killing convenience store clerk Irene Graves while he was part of a robbery spree that started on Halloween 1997, according to court documents and newspaper archives. Graves, a single mother of three children, had only $37 in her register and when she could not open a safe, Owens shot her in the head, according to court documents filed this week.

    One of the big pushes behind changing South Carolina's capital punishment law was the state's inability to secure drugs for lethal injections.

    Stirling and McMaster made an initial push several years ago for a shield law that would protect the identities of makers and suppliers of the drugs used for lethal injections.

    At a news conference in November 2017, Stirling said the state was unable to obtain pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, drugs that could be used for lethal injections. The last lethal injection drugs the state had expired before Stirling took over as corrections director in late 2013, he said.

    Richard Moore of Spartanburg has also made a request for the S.C. Supreme Court to vacate his death sentence.

    Moore, 56, received the death penalty in 2001 after his conviction for killing a convenience store clerk in 1999.

    He was scheduled to be executed Dec. 4, 2020, but the S.C. Supreme Court delayed the execution. The state Department of Corrections did not have the drugs for lethal injection.

    https://eu.greenvilleonline.com/stor...on/7706732002/

  8. #28
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    Execution stays in hand, SC death row inmates drop requests for emergency injunction

    COLUMBIA, S.C. - Two death row inmates who sought court intervention in the weeks before they were scheduled to be executed are taking a step back from their appeals.

    Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens, who received stays from the state Supreme Court days before Sigmon was scheduled for execution, asked that court to dismiss their appeal and withdrew their motion for an emergency injunction in a federal appellate court.

    The step back from their legal cases comes after the state Supreme Court ruled that the Department of Corrections could not proceed with executions until it could offer the inmates a choice between two or more methods of execution. Because the state is currently unable to purchase the necessary drugs for the lethal injection, that means that executions cannot be carried out until Corrections can offer the firing squad as a method of execution.

    The department is currently working on creating procedures and policies for a death by firing squad. That method has never been used to carry out an official state execution in South Carolina before.

    Sigmon and Owens were granted stays of execution June 16 — two days before Sigmon was scheduled to be executed. Owens was initially scheduled to be executed the next week on June 25.

    On June 22, Owens and Sigmon’s lawyers filed a motion with the state Supreme Court asking them to dismiss their appeal, calling it “moot” since the pair had been granted stays of execution.

    That case was concerning the constitutionality of South Carolina’s new execution law, passed in May.

    Under the old law, the default method of execution was the lethal injection, so if an inmate did not expressly choose to die in the electric chair, the state could not force them to do so. When drug companies stopped selling the lethal injection drugs to states seeking to use them in executions, it created a shortage in South Carolina, and the state suddenly could not carry out executions.

    Lawmakers sought to remedy that this year by changing the default method of execution to the electric chair. Under the revised law passed in May, the default method is the electric chair, but inmates can choose the lethal injection or the firing squad if those methods are available.

    Lawyers for the death row inmates argued that the change in the law was unconstitutional, arguing that the retroactive nature of the law, which makes it apply to inmates sentenced to death before the law was changed, is unlawful because it forces inmates to die by a more painful method.

    They asked a judge in Richland County to issue an injunction to the new law, which would have halted executions.

    A circuit court judge, however, ruled against them, saying it was unlikely that the attorneys’ arguments “little likelihood of success.” The attorneys subsequently appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court.

    In a federal appellate court, the inmates asked that their request for an emergency injunction also be dismissed.

    That case stemmed from a case that the inmates lost in federal court, where their attorneys argued that the electric chair violated the Eighth Amendment, which protects from cruel and unusual punishment.

    Despite previous opinions from the Supreme Court saying the electric chair does not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment, the inmates’ lawyers argued that it was time for the court to reevaluate.

    A Florence federal judge ruled against their request for an emergency injunction, saying they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their argument.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...252417763.html
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  9. #29
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    Death row inmates want SC to delay executions after firing squad, electric chair approved

    By Emily Bohatch
    The State

    Lawyers for two South Carolina inmates who face executions have asked the state’s highest court to delay scheduling their deaths until a lower court can decide whether the electric chair and firing squad methods are constitutional.

    The move is the latest legal entanglement as South Carolina tries to restart executions after a more than 10-year hiatus caused by a shortage of lethal injection drugs.

    Attorneys representing death row inmates Brad Sigmon and Freddie Owens asked the state Supreme Court Monday for the stay days after the South Carolina Department of Corrections announced it had finished the necessary renovations to carry out an execution by firing squad.

    While lethal injection drugs are unavailable, South Carolina lawmakers passed a law last year giving death row inmates the option of execution by firing squad, adding it to a list that includes the default method of the electric chair.

    If an inmate chooses the firing squad, it will be the first time in state history an inmate is put to death using that method.

    The lawyers, part of nonprofit organization Justice360, have asked for a stay of execution because state courts have yet to rule on whether the firing squad or the electric chair are constitutional, a question courts have been debating since last summer when Sigmon and Owens’ executions were initially scheduled.

    A hearing on their case is scheduled for April 4 in a Richland County court, according to a state Supreme Court document.

    The State has reached out to the state Department of Corrections for a response.

    Court battle drags on for nearly a year

    Lawyers originally filed their lawsuit in May last year in Richland County.

    The court ultimately denied their request for an injunction to the new state law, and the attorneys made their request again in federal court. A federal judge then ruled against their challenge, deciding the electric chair is constitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which prevents cruel and unusual punishment.

    In January, a U.S. District Court sent the case back down to the state courts, ruling “the questions being raised here are novel and/or complex issues of State law that have not been decided by the South Carolina Courts.” While the federal court has held that the electric chair is constitutional, some state courts across the country, including Georgia’s, have found otherwise.

    With the question about the constitutionality of the firing squad and the electric chair still on the table, lawyers for the death row inmates asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to hold off on issuing execution orders, which provide a date for their death and set their executions in motion.

    Last year, Sigmon’s execution was scheduled within days of state Department of Corrections officials notifying the court that the electric chair was ready. Owens’ execution was scheduled the following week.

    Both executions were halted after the state Supreme Court ruled that death row inmates in South Carolina must be given a choice between at least two methods of execution.

    At the time, only the electric chair was available, and corrections officials were told they must ready the firing squad for executions to go forward.

    Firing squad new to SC

    The Department of Corrections laid out Friday what an execution by firing squad in the state agency’s upgraded death chamber at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia would look like.

    During an execution, the firing squad of volunteers will stand behind a wall with their rifles. The guns will not be visible from the witness room, which is separated from the chamber by bullet-resistant glass. Witnesses will only be able to see the right side of the inmate’s body.

    The inmate, dressed in a prison-issued uniform, will be given the opportunity to make a last statement. Then, a small marker will be placed over their heart and a hood will be placed over their head.

    The prison warden will read the execution order and the firing squad team will fire.

    In all, the agency said renovations to the death chamber cost about $53,600.

    https://www.thestate.com/news/local/...259646970.html
    Last edited by Julius; 03-23-2022 at 04:59 AM.

  10. #30
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    Since they left 2 weeks between Moore and Sigmon, Freddie Owens will likely get an execution date of May 27 and Gary Terry of June 10.

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