South Carolina is starting to schedule executions and after a holiday break, the state Supreme Court set the next Jan. 31.
The government is looking to issue death sentences to many inmates who have lost their convictions but whose executions have been delayed because prison officials cannot obtain lethal injections.
Marion Bowman Jr., 44, will be executed at the end of January for the 2001 murder of his friend whose body was found in the trunk of his Dorchester County car.
Bowman’s attorneys said Friday that he maintains his innocence. His lawyers also said it would be “unconscionable” to execute him because of the unresolved doubts about his conviction.
SOUTH CAROLINA PRISONER DIES BY LETHAL INJECTION, ENDING STATE’S 13-YEAR STAND ON DEATH.
Marion Bowman Jr., 44, will be executed on Jan. 31. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
He will be the third inmate to be executed since September after the state obtained the lethal drugs. The first two – Freddie Owens, who was killed on September 20, and Richard Moore, who was killed on November 1 – chose to die by lethal injection, but the prisoners could also choose electrocution or a new firing squad.
Three other prisoners are still awaiting execution dates. The state Supreme Court has ruled that the executions can be divided into five weeks.
The court could have decided the date of Bowman’s execution on December 6, but the court accepted without comment the request of the lawyers for the four inmates who are awaiting execution to delay his execution until January.
“Six consecutive murders without respite will have a profound effect on all involved, especially during such an important time for families,” lawyers wrote in court papers.
Attorneys for the state responded that prison officials were determined to keep the original plan and that the state had executed people on Christmas and New Year’s in the past, including five between Dec. 4, 1998, and Jan. 8, 1999.
Once one of the states with the most executions, South Carolina had a 13-year hiatus before restarting this past period due to difficulty in obtaining lethal injection drugs after they expired due to concerns of pharmaceutical companies that they would have to disclose that they had them. he sold drugs to government officials. But the state legislature passed a shield law two years ago that allows officials to keep suppliers of deadly drugs secret.
In July, the country’s Supreme Court cleared the way for the resumption of the killings.
Death row inmates can petition for clemency from Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, but no governor in the state has commuted the death penalty to life in prison without parole in the modern death penalty era.
This photo shows the federal death chamber in Columbia, South Carolina, including the electric chair, right, and the firing squad chair, left. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
South Carolina’s director of prisons has until next week to confirm that lethal injection, the electric chair and the new firing squad option are all options available to Bowman.
The last time an inmate in the US was executed by a firing squad was in Utah in 2010, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Bowman was convicted of murdering Kandee Martin, 21, in 2001. Many friends and family members testified about him as part of plea deals with prosecutors.
One friend said Bowman was upset because Martin owed him money, and a second testified that Bowman believed Martin had installed a recording device to get him arrested.
Bowman’s attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to delay his execution to allow for a final hearing on his appeal, saying his attorney was disinterested and had more sympathy for the white victim than his black client.
His current attorneys said Friday that he did not receive a fair trial and has no effective representation.
Bowman’s trial attorney pressured him to plead guilty and “made some bad decisions based on his racist views rather than legal advice,” according to Lindsey S. Vann, executive director of the inmate advocacy group Justice 360.
SOUTH CAROLINA FINDS RICHARD MOORE DESPITE WIDELY SUPPORTED REQUEST TO IMPOSE LIFE SENTENCE.
An execution room in Columbus, South Carolina. (South Carolina Department of Corrections via AP)
“His conviction was based on the unreliable and biased testimony of biased witnesses who received reduced or reduced sentences for their cooperation,” wrote Vann, who issued a statement on behalf of Bowman’s legal team.
South Carolina has executed 45 inmates since the death penalty was reinstated in the US in 1976. In the early 2000s, the state averaged three murders per year. Only nine states have executed more prisoners.
Since the moratorium on extrajudicial killings since 2011, the number of people on death row in the state has dropped significantly.
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The state had 63 prisoners on death row at the beginning of 2011, but now there are only 30. About 20 prisoners were removed from the death list and received different sentences after successful appeals, while others died of natural causes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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