South Carolina Supreme Court rejects claim inmate didn't kill clerk and refuses to stop execution

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The South Carolina Supreme Court has again refused to stop the execution of inmate Freddie Owens who is set to die Friday by lethal injection.

The justices ruled Thursday that a sworn statement from a friend whose testimony helped convict Owens and who now says he lied to save himself from the death chamber wasn't enough to halt prison officials from putting Owens to death.

His execution is set for Friday at 6 p.m. at a Columbia prison for the killing of a Greenville convenience store clerk in 1997. It would be South Carolina's first execution in more than a decade.

Owens' lawyers on Wednesday filed the statement from his co-defendant Steven Golden saying Owens wasn’t at the store when Irene Graves was killed during a robbery. They said they were disappointed by the justices' decision.

“South Carolina is on the verge of executing a man for a crime he did not commit," attorney Gerald “Bo” King said in a statement. “We will continue to advocate for Mr. Owens.”

Prosecutors reiterated that several other witnesses testified that Owens told them he pulled the trigger. And just like it did last week when Golden said in a sworn statement he had a a secret deal with prosecutors that he never told the jury about, the state Supreme Court agreed the execution should go on.

The justices wrote on Thursday that there was no evidence Golden had an independent attorney to talk to about his recent statements and they did not name who might have killed Graves if Owens didn't do it.

In his statement, Golden said he blamed Owens because he was high on cocaine and police put pressure on him by claiming they already knew the two were together and that Owens was talking. Golden also said he feared the real killer.

“I thought the real shooter or his associates might kill me if I named him to police. I am still afraid of that. But Freddie was not there,” Golden wrote in his statement.

Golden testified at Owens' trial, saying prosecutors promised to consider his testimony in his favor but he still faced the death penalty or life in prison. He was eventually sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, according to court records.

"I’m coming forward now because I know Freddie’s execution date is September 20 and I don’t want Freddie to be executed for something he didn’t do. This has weighed heavily on my mind and I want to have a clear conscience," Golden wrote in his statement.

Prosecutors have said Golden wasn't the only evidence linking Owens to the crime since other friends testified that they, along with Owens, had planned to rob the store. Those friends said Owens bragged to them about killing Graves. His former girlfriend also testified that he confessed to the killing.

Prosecutors argued last week that Golden's decision to change his story shouldn't be enough to stop the execution because he has now admitted to lying under oath, thereby showing that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

“There is no indication that Golden will testify; there is no reasoning to why Owens would admit the shooting (of) Ms. Graves to officers, his girlfriend, and his mother if he was not the shooter as now claimed,” the state Attorney General's Office wrote in court papers.

Also on Thursday, a group called South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty presented a petition with more than 10,000 signatures to Gov. Henry McMaster's office asking him to reduce Owens' sentence to life in prison.

“Justice works for restoration. You cannot restore someone who you kill,” said the group's executive director, Rev. Hillary Taylor, as she read from one of the comments on the petition.

McMaster, a Republican, has said he will wait to announce his decision on clemency until prison officials call him minutes before the execution begins.

Owens would be the first person executed in South Carolina in 13 years after the state struggled to obtain drugs needed for lethal injections because companies refused to sell them if they could be publicly identified.

The state added a firing squad option and passed a shield law to keep much of the details of executions private. The state Supreme Court then cleared the way for the death chamber to reopen this summer.

Five other inmates are also out of appeals and the state can schedule executions every five weeks.