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#Post#: 459--------------------------------------------------
~ Freddie Owens, 20Sep24, (SC) ~
By: BuzzC Date: June 14, 2021, 10:53 pm
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Freddie Owens on South Carolina's Death Row--
April 23, 2021
[IMG]
HTML https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0jf8BhF2_Jc/XXQDvUKgU4I/AAAAAAAAF4E/Bxcs2CJkxGAVgks33YY266gyAHdKDgrqQCLcBGAs/s1600/Freddie%2BEugene%2BOwens.png[/img]
Freddie Owens was sentenced to death by the State of South
Carolina for the murder of Irene Graves during an armed robbery.
According to court documents Freddie Owens entered a Speedway
convenience store where he shot and killed Irene Graves. Freddie
Owens was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
The charges against appellant stem from the 4:00 a.m. November
1, 1997, armed robbery of the Speedway convenience store and
fatal shooting of the store’s clerk, Irene Graves.  
Appellant was jointly tried with co-defendant Stephen Andra
Golden.   During jury qualification, Golden pled guilty.
During trial, the State introduced the Speedway security video
which recorded the robbery and shooting.   The video
reveals two individuals entered the store.   One
individual shot Graves.
Golden admitted he was one of the Speedway robbers and claimed
the appellant was his accomplice.   He testified that the
appellant shot Graves in the head after she stated she could not
open the safe.
#Post#: 663--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Freddie Owens, 20Sep24, (SC) ~
By: BuzzC Date: September 19, 2024, 7:46 pm
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S.C. high court rules Freddie Owens' execution can proceed
despite new affidavit--
Thursday, September 19th, 2024
South Carolina death row inmate Freddie Owens will die as
scheduled on Friday despite the introduction of an affidavit by
his co-defendant proclaiming Owens' innocence, the state's high
court has ruled.
Owen is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. EDT
Friday for the 1997 murder of a convenience store clerk in
Greenville, S.C., marking the state's first execution in 13
years.
As the execution approached on Thursday, Owens' attorneys
introduced a statement from his co-defendant in the 1999 trial
for the slaying of clerk Irene Graves during the commission of a
robbery at a Speedway convenience store.
Steven Golden, who drew a 30-year sentence for the crime, said
in an affidavit that, contrary to his trial testimony, Owens
was, in fact, not the triggerman, and was not even at the scene
of the robbery.
Rather, it was another unnamed robber who killed Graves, Golden
stated.
"I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I
named him to the police," he said in explaining his years of
silence. "I am still afraid of that."
Golden said he agreed to finger Owens in 1997 in exchange for a
deal to escape the death penalty himself but decided to reveal
what he knew because he does not want Owens to be executed for
something he did not do.
Owens, now 46, was 19 at the time of Graves' death. His lawyers
argued in an emergency motion the new information was sufficient
to halt the execution and to warrant a new trial, but the South
Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday ruled otherwise, according to
multiple reports.
"This new affidavit is squarely inconsistent with Golden's
testimony at Owens' 1999 trial, at the first resentencing trial
in 2003, and in the statement he gave law enforcement officers
immediately after he participated in committing the crimes in
1997," the high court order read.
The justices also ruled that "considerable other evidence"
places Owens as the triggerman, including confessions to his
girlfriend, his mother, another accomplice and two law
enforcement officers.
8)
#Post#: 664--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Freddie Owens, 20Sep24, (SC) ~
By: BuzzC Date: September 20, 2024, 8:08 pm
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South Carolina death row inmate Freddie Owens executed by lethal
injection--
Friday, September 20th, 2024
South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death Friday as the
state restarted executions after an unintended 13-year pause
because prison officials couldn't get the drugs needed for
lethal injections.
Owens was convicted of the 1997 killing of a Greenville
convenience store clerk during a robbery. While on trial, Owens
killed an inmate at a county jail. His confession to that attack
was read to two different juries and a judge who all sentenced
him to death.
Owens, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m.
When the curtain to the death chamber opened, Owens was strapped
to a gurney, his arms stretched to his sides.
He mouthed a word to his lawyer, who smiled back. He appeared
conscious for about a minute, then his eyes closed and he took
several deep breaths.
His breathing got more shallow and his face twitched for another
four or five minutes before the movements stopped.
A medical professional came in and declared him dead about 13
minutes later.
Owens' last-ditch appeals were repeatedly denied, including by a
federal court Friday morning. Owens also petitioned for a stay
of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court. South Carolina's
governor and corrections director swiftly filed a reply, stating
the high court should reject Owens' petition. The filing said
nothing is exceptional about his case.
The high court denied the request shortly after the scheduled
start time of the execution.
His last chance to avoid death was for Republican South Carolina
Gov. Henry McMaster to commute his sentence to life in prison.
McMaster denied Owens' request as well, stating that he had
"carefully reviewed and thoughtfully considered" Owens'
application for clemency.
McMaster said earlier that he would follow historical tradition
and announce his decision minutes before the lethal injection
begins, when prison officials call him and the state attorney
general to make sure there is no reason to delay the execution.
The former prosecutor had promised to review Owens' clemency
petition but has said he tends to trust prosecutors and juries.
Owens was convicted of killing Irene Graves in 1999. Prosecutors
said he fired a shot into the head of the single mother of three
who worked three jobs when she said she couldn't open the
store's safe.
But hanging over his case is another killing: After his
conviction, but before he was sentenced in Graves' killing,
Owens fatally attacked a fellow jail inmate, Christopher Lee.
Owens gave a detailed confession about how he stabbed Lee,
burned his eyes, choked and stomped him, ending by saying he did
it "because I was wrongly convicted of murder," according to the
written account of an investigator.
That confession was read to each jury and judge who went on to
sentence Owens to death. Owens had two different death sentences
overturned on appeal only to end up back on death row.
Owens was charged with murder in Lee's death but was never
tried. Prosecutors dropped the charges with the right to restore
them in 2019 around the time Owens ran out of regular appeals.
Owens may be the first of several inmates to die in South
Carolina's death chamber at Broad River Correctional
Institution. Five other inmates are out of appeals and the South
Carolina Supreme Court has cleared the way to hold an execution
every five weeks.
South Carolina first tried to add the firing squad to restart
executions after its supply of lethal injection drugs expired
and no company was willing to publicly sell them more. But the
state had to pass a shield law keeping the drug supplier and
much of the protocol for executions secret to be able to reopen
the death chamber.
To carry out executions, the state switched from a three-drug
method to a new protocol of using just the sedative
pentobarbital. The new process is similar to how the federal
government kills inmates, according to state prison officials.
South Carolina law allows condemned inmates to choose lethal
injection, the new firing squad or the electric chair built in
1912. Owens allowed his lawyer to choose how he died, saying he
felt if he made the choice he would be a party to his own death
and his religious beliefs denounce suicide.
South Carolina's last execution was in May 2011. It took a
decade of wrangling in the Legislature — first adding the firing
squad as a method and later passing a shield law — to get
capital punishment restarted.
South Carolina has put 43 inmates to death since the death
penalty was restarted in the U.S. in 1976. In the early 2000's,
it was carrying out an average of three executions a year. Only
nine states have put more inmates to death.
But since the unintentional execution pause, South Carolina's
death row population has dwindled. The state had 63 condemned
inmates in early 2011. It had 32 when Friday started. About 20
inmates have been taken off death row and received different
prison sentences after successful appeals. Others have died of
natural causes.
In his final appeal, Owens' lawyers said prosecutors never
presented scientific evidence that Owens pulled the trigger when
Graves was killed and the chief evidence against him was a
co-defendant who pleaded guilty and testified that Owens was the
killer.
Owens' attorneys provided a sworn statement two days before the
execution from Steven Golden saying Owens was not in the store,
contradicting his trial testimony. Prosecutors said other
friends of Owens and his former girlfriend testified that he
bragged about killing the clerk.
Owens' lawyers also said he was just 19 when the killing
happened and that he had suffered brain damage from physical and
sexual violence while in a juvenile prison.
8)
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