South Carolina executes first inmate in 13 years

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South Carolina executes first inmate in 13 years

South Carolina has ********* its first ****** row inmate in 13 years, administering a lethal injection to Freddie Owens.

Owens, 46, was found guilty by a jury of ******** shop worker Irene Graves during an armed robbery in Greenville in 1997.

He was ********* despite his co-defendant signing a sworn statement this week claiming Owens was not present at the time of the robbery and ********.

The South Carolina Supreme Court refused to halt Owens’ **********, saying the claims were inconsistent with testimony made at his trial.

Owens was ********* at the Broad River Correctional Institute in Columbia, South Carolina, on Friday evening.

He was pronounced ***** at 18:55 local time (22:55 GMT) after being injected with a ***** called pentobarbital. He made no final statement.

His ****** followed a pause in executions in the state because prison officials were unable to procure the ***** required for lethal injections.

Owens was sentenced to ****** in 1999, two years after ******** Graves, after being convicted of *******, armed robbery and ********* ***********.

In the day after he was found guilty, he ******* his cellmate in jail, reports CNN affiliate WHNS.

According to reporting on his trial by South Carolina newspaper The State, Owens was 19 when he and Steve Golden, then 18, held Graves at gunpoint while attempting to rob the convenience store where she worked.

Owens shot and ******* Graves after she ******* to open a safe below the counter, according to testimony provided by Golden at Owens’s trial.

At the time of her ******, Graves was a 41-year-old single mother of three.

Lawyers for Owens tried to halt his ********** a few times, including twice in September. But the court denied each request.

In the latest attempt, lawyers pointed to an affidavit signed by Golden on Wednesday, which claimed Owens was innocent.

The court denied the request to halt the ********** by saying that the new affidavit was “squarely inconsistent with Golden’s testimony at Owens’s 1999 trial” and the statement he gave to police right after their arrest.

Other witnesses also testified that Owens had told them he shot Graves, prosecutors said.

Advocates against the ****** penalty and Owens’s mother also appealed to the state for clemency, which was denied by Governor Henry McMaster.

Hours before his **********, Owens’s mother said in a statement it was a “grave injustice that has been perpetrated against my son”.

“Freddie has maintained his innocence since day one,” his mother, Dora Mason, said, according to local news outlet the Greenville News.

Inmates in South Carolina are allowed to choose whether they want to **** by lethal injection, electric chair or ******* squad.

Owens deferred the decision to his lawyer, who chose the lethal injection option for him, according to the Greenville News.

Journalists who witnessed the ********** said members of Graves’ family were also present.

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